Saint Louis Healthy Marriage Coalition

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Saint Louis Healthy Marriage Coalition
My childs father and I can now begin working on
sticking together when making decisions.
Female respondent after participating in St.
Louis Healthy Marriage Program
September 13, 2006 Office of Child Support
Enforcement Conference Marriott Crystal Gateway,
Arlington VA
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Healthy Relationship Skillsfor Fragile
FamiliesA Teaching Demonstration Project

• Special Improvement Project Priority Three OCSE

Bridget Brennan Executive Director, St. Louis
Healthy Marriage Coalition Project Officer for
SIP Grant Priority Three
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INTRODUCTION

• Personal responsibility is the foundation for any
  change in behavior
• Major focus of project is to expand the base of
  service providers in our community who will be
  trained to reach a significant percent of fathers
  and mothers in designated geographic areas
• Training will equip these parents with solid,
  practical and effective parenting skills
• Teaching parents personal responsibility
• Responsibility for their personal lives
• Responsibility for the lives of their children
• Healthy parenting skills can transfer to healthy
  relationship skills.

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RATIONALE NEED FOR ASSISTANCE

• Within underserved ethnic and culturally diverse
  populations, a significant number of young adults
  have entered into parenthood without the
  essential skills necessary to form and sustain a
  healthy, permanent relationship.
• Some striking statistics
• In 1998, 64 of African-American births were to
  unmarried women.
• Over the last 30 years, African-American
  marriages have dropped 41.
• 60 of unmarried parents vs. 24 of married
  parents have children by more than one partner.
• The poverty rate is 35.2 for children in
  single-parent homes vs. 8.2 in married parent
  homes.
• These statistics illustrate the need for fragile
  families to be educated in healthy parenting and
  relationship skills

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MOTIVATION

• Effective relationship skills are key for
  children being able to count on their parents for
  the financial, medical, and emotional support the
  children need to be healthy and successful.
• Children of engaged fathers are less likely to
  have health, behavioral, and school problems.
  These children are in turn more likely to grow up
  as engaged parents themselves.
• Putting children first and utilizing the Family
  Wellness program, we hope to ensure that parents
  make healthy relationship decisions and decide if
  marriage is appropriate.

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PROGRAM OBJECTIVES

• Improved relationships between parents and their
  children
• Increased parental involvement with their
  children
• Increased financial payments from non-custodial
  parents for their children
• Decreased number of adversarial relationships
  between parent partners and
• Increased progress toward family formation among
  parent partners.

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GOALS YEAR ONE

• Provide child support enforcement education
  training, including paternity establishment, to
  any service providers who have not received case
  education training.
• Identify and eliminate barriers to seeking child
  support assistance.
• Teach men and women to move from an adversarial
  attitude to one of cooperation with each other
  for the benefit of the child.
• Build a collaborative, community effort, which
  will provide CSEA education, including paternity
  testing and family wellness training in order to
  form and sustain healthy marriages.

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SERVICE DELIVERY NUTS BOLTS

• Collaboration between
• State of Missouri Division of Social Services
• Fathers Support Center
• St. Louis Healthy Marriage Coalition
• Missouri child support enforcement agency
• Local St. Louis Family Support Division offices
• Partnered with
• Head Start
• Lutheran Family Services
• Womens Safe House
• Lemay Family Care Center
• Our Ladys Inn
• Black Leadership Roundtable
• Family Resource Center
• La Clinica
• Manos Unidas
• Salvation Army
• Pregnancy Resource Center

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PRINCIPLES OF FAMILY WELLNESS

• Family Wellness curriculum serves as the
  foundation for program service delivery
• Research-based, culturally competent program used
  throughout the United States to address essential
  parenting skills, personal responsibility skills,
  and basic relationship skills.
• Target audience is at-risk urban African
  American, Bosnian and Hispanic mothers and
  fathers.

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RECRUITMENT MARKETING

• To date, we have recruited and marketed our
  program through a variety of mediums
• Partner Agencies
• Support and Referral from Missouri Division of
  Family Services
• 1-800 Number advertised in community
• Posters and Brochures
  
  
• Speaking at various community meetings to spread
  the word
• Phone Book Advertisements

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CHALLENGES

• Recruitment is an on-going challenge
• Providing classes for a gender mixed population
  rather than just one gender
• Expanding contact hours
• Bringing parents of same child together for
  classes

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MEASURABLE OUTCOMES

• Actual Numbers served 292 custodial and
  non-custodial parents have been served.
• Our goal had been to serve 214 the first year.
• We believe we exceeded our goals for the
  following reasons
• Commitment of trained Family Wellness instructors
• Quality of Family Wellness curriculum
• Ability of partner agencies to recruit
  participants
• Family assistance gift was a perk

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PARTICIPANT CHARACTERISTICS

• Three-quarters of participants (75) were female
• The majority (64) were African American,
  followed by 23 who were Hispanic
• More than three-quarters (77) of participants
  were between the ages of 20 and 39 years, for an
  average age of 32 years
• The number of children reported by participants
  ranged from none to nine, for an average of 2.4
  children per participant
• More than half (59) were employed either on a
  full-time or part-time basis
• Services provided at twelve sites

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CHILD SUPPORT CHARACTERISTICS
Medical Coverage
Birth Certificate Documentation
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CHILD SUPPORT CHARACTERISTICS
Paternity Child Support Documentation
Monetary Material Support Given to the Parent
Partner
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CURRICULUM COMPONENTS
Curriculum Components Received by Participants
Percent (n171) Parents in Healthy
Families 81 Children in Healthy
Families 40 Couples in Healthy
Families 40 Change in Healthy
Families 40 Solving Family Problems 29 Passin
g on your Values 17
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BEST PRACTICES

• Engaging presenters
• Role plays
• Gender mixed classes
• Family Wellness Coordinator who stays in close
  contact with all instructors and sites to provide
  sites with necessary support and resources
• Cohesive professional working team including
  Family Wellness Coordinator, Family Wellness
  Research Team, Business Manager, and Executive
  Director

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COMMENTS FROM PARTICIPANTS
Comments about what participants gained from the
Family Wellness Program

• I have learned to listen to what he might have to
  say.
• We never talked before and now we do, so I can
  use this information to get a deeper
  understanding of where he is coming from.
• Ive learned to calm down and think before I
  yell.
• I usually brush him off, but now I will take more
  time to listen.

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COMMENTS FROM PARTICIPANTS
Specific comments from NON-CUSTODIAL PARENTS
about what they gained from the program

• I now realize how difficult it is to take care of
  the children with me not staying with them.
• I really want to sit down with my kids one-on-one
  and see how they feel about things.
• Its teaching me to be a better father and a
  better man.