Absence of conflict of interest.
Citation
Goesling, B., Gross, M., & Lugo-Gil, J. (2022). Integrating Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education into an employment training program: The impacts of Career STREAMS. Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Highlights
- The study's objective was to examine the impact of the Career STREAMS program on connection to the labor market and labor market success. The Career STREAMS program integrates a Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education (HMRE) curriculum into an employment training program.
- The study was a randomized control trial that used surveys and the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH) to compare the outcomes of adults who were offered the Career STREAMS program to a control group of adults who were offered a traditional employment training program.
- The study found no statistically significant relationships between being offered the Career STREAMS program and connection to the labor market or labor market success.
- The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is high because it is based on a well-implemented randomized controlled trial. This means we would be confident that any estimated effects would be attributable to Career STREAMS and not to other factors. However, the study did not find statistically significant effects.
Intervention Examined
Career STREAMS
Features of the Intervention
The Career STREAM program integrates Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education (HMRE) into a traditional employment services program with the intent of generating positive impacts on both participants’ relationship skills and labor market outcomes. Family and Workforce Centers of America (FWCA), a non-profit social service provider in St. Louis, Missouri, received funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Family Assistance to integrate HMRE in one of its traditional employment programs. FWCA supplemented its existing employment program with lessons from the HMRE curriculum Within My Reach, as well as lessons from Winning the Workplace Challenge, a curriculum on workplace relationship skills, and Money Habitudes, an activity to improve financial skills.
The resulting Career STREAM program included a two-week workshop that spanned seven hours per day and integrated content on employment and relationships, covering both workplace and romantic relationships. Following the two-week workshop, the program offered five one-hour booster sessions led by the same facilitators as the workshops and scheduled at various times throughout the workweek; these booster sessions introduced additional HMRE content and reinforced concepts and skills from the initial workshop. Participants were also offered personalized case management and job development services, including individual meetings with a case manager and access to a job developer for up to 12 months after program enrollment. The program served young adults who were at least 18 years old (mostly ages 20 to 30) and interested in enrolling in an employment training program.
Features of the Study
The study was a randomized control trial conducted in St. Louis, Missouri, to examine the impact of the Career STREAMS program on relationship outcomes, connection to the labor market, and labor market success. Please note that because relationship outcomes fall outside the scope of CLEAR, this profile does not discuss those findings. A total of 908 participants were enrolled in the study. The average age of study participants was 24 with nearly three-quarters between the ages of 20 and 30. Nearly two-thirds of participants were female (63 percent) and the majority of participants identified as Black (93 percent). The vast majority of participants reported having had a romantic partner in the past year (92 percent), although nearly half said they were not currently in a romantic relationship (43 percent). More than three-quarters of participants reported they were looking for work (80 percent) and nearly two-thirds reported relying on some form of public assistance (60 percent).
Of these study participants, 455 were randomly assigned to the treatment group (offered the Career STREAMS program), and 453 were randomly assigned to the control group. Participants in the control group were offered FWCA’s traditional employment-only workshops, as well as personalized employment case management and job development services for up to 12 months after program enrollment.
The authors used data from a baseline survey, a one-year follow-up survey, and the NDNH. The baseline survey (conducted by telephone before random assignment) collected information on demographics, relationship attitudes and skills, relationship experiences, employment, economic circumstances, and well-being. The follow-up survey survey (conducted online or by telephone about 12 months after enrollment) collected information on relationship attitudes, perceived skills, relationship experiences, employment and earnings, and economic circumstances. The NDNH is a database of employer-reported quarterly wage data that includes earnings from all jobs covered by unemployment insurance. The authors used a statistical model that compared the outcomes of treatment and control group members after 12 months, after controlling for differences in background characteristics and the probability of responding to the survey and matching to the NDNH.
Findings
Employment
- The study found no statistically significant relationship between the Career STREAMS program and labor market connection at the 12-month follow-up, as measured by being employed, engaged in a training program, or enrolled in school.
Earnings and wages
- The study found no statistically significant relationship between the Career STREAMS program and labor market success at the 12-month follow-up, as measured by monthly earnings.
Considerations for Interpreting the Findings
The authors conducted several robustness tests which found similar results to their main analyses. These included exploring the impact of adjusting for baseline characteristics and using alternative outcome measures, such as measuring employment success based on the number of months or quarters employed. They also compared outcomes between highly attending Career STREAMS participants and a control group with similar background characteristics.
Causal Evidence Rating
The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is high because it was based on a well-implemented randomized controlled trial. This means we would be confident that any estimated effects would be attributable to Career STREAMS and not to other factors. However, the study did not find statistically significant effects.