Written by Chris Gersten   

1.        The Welfare Reform Act of 1996 created TANF and had two specific references to the use of TANF funding to “Increase the number of children raised in two-parent families.”  These references were designed to encourage states to experiment with state TANF funding to create demonstration projects in relationship and marriage education.  There was NO REFERENCE to fatherhood programs in this landmark legislations signed by President Clinton.

2.       Only Oklahoma ran with this language and created a state-wide marriage and relationship education program which has continued under GOP and Democratic governors.

Read more: New Talking Points to Save TANF

The purpose of this document is to compare and contrast the amount of emphasis placed upon Relationship Education programming within the current Healthy Marriage Demonstration Grant (HMDG) and Promoting Responsible Fatherhood (PRF) grants and both parts of the proposed Fatherhood, Marriage, and Families Innovation Fund (FMFIF) contained within the current 2011 TANF budget proposal.

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Written by Chris Gersten    The following is a summary of findings by well known research organizations regarding fatherhood demonstration programs launched in 1994 and continuing until 2004. These demonstration programs were designed to provide job services, job training, subsidized job training, case management and follow-up support to young men in the child support enforcement system. In addition, each of these demonstration projects was designed to teach fatherhood skills and improve the relationships of participating fathers to their children.

The results of each of these analysis can lead to only one conclusion:

These demonstration programs, all linked to the HHS/ACF/Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) failed in their efforts to strengthen father’s relationships with their children and had mixed results increasing the earnings and employment of the men following the demonstration projects.

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Written by Chris Gersten   

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