Relationship Education for Youth Who Have Faced Adversity

This annotated bibliography focused on programs oriented to a wide variety of youth, including those currently or previously involved in the criminal justice system, pregnant and parenting teens, youth in the foster care system, youth transitioning out of the foster care system, refugee youth, youth who have dropped out of school, youth who have experienced trauma, and youth who are experiencing (or have experienced) homelessness. Although many researchers and organizations use the term “vulnerable youth” to describe these populations, we have chosen not to use this term here. As with the use of the term “at-risk” to describe youth, youth are often labeled as “vulnerable” without clear indication of what makes them vulnerable or what they are vulnerable to, as though their vulnerability were an inherent trait.⁶ However, the factors that make many of the youth studied “vulnerable” are external to them and can change over time. Additionally, the experiences of these youth are diverse. As such, we use “youth who have faced adversity” when referring collectively to the populations of youth included in this annotated bibliography.^b

To identify the articles and resources included in this annotated bibliography, we first searched the academic and gray literature (e.g., research reports, working papers, government documents) via Google and Google Scholar using the following terms: “healthy marriage,” “relationship education/enhancement/skills training and vulnerable youth,”^c “youth involved in the criminal justice system,” “pregnant and parenting teens,” “youth in the foster care system,” “youth transitioning out of the foster care system,” “youth in the child welfare system,” “refugee youth,” “school drop-outs,” “trauma-exposed youth,” and “homeless youth.” We then examined the reference sections of these initial reviewed resources to identify additional documents. To gather other resources not captured through these channels, we also searched the websites of organizations that focus on youth who have faced adversity, including the Administration for Children and Families, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Search Institute, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the Dibble Institute.

To maximize relevance to the HMRE field, we limited the articles to (1) outcome evaluation studies, which examined the effects of relationship education on relationships and other skills among youth who have faced adversity; (2) implementation research focused on how relationship education programs were carried out, including barriers and facilitators to program execution and feasibility testing; and (3) descriptive studies providing information about the characteristics of youth who have faced adversity (and their context) that would be relevant for program design, including youths’ relational status and aspirations, knowledge, and need for support.

We included articles on programs if the program addressed relational skills (e.g., communication, conflict resolution, regulating emotions, setting boundaries, asking consent) and/or dating or intimate partner violence. Sometimes the central intent of a program was to promote positive romantic relationships, but we also included resources for which relationship skill-building was a secondary focus (e.g., natural mentoring or wrap-around support for youth transitioning out of foster care). We included studies that addressed relational competence and support beyond romantic relationships (e.g., mentors, case workers) if the skills emphasized were consistent with those taught in HMRE curricula and could transfer in a highly relevant way to intimate partner relationships. Ultimately, 26 studies met our criteria: seven outcome evaluations, four implementation studies, and 15 descriptive studies.

The authors would like to thank the Steering Committee of the Marriage Strengthening Research and Dissemination Center (MAST Center) for their feedback on earlier drafts of this annotated bibliography. We would additionally like to thank Ria Shelton for her research assistance.

Editor: Brent Franklin
Designer: Catherine Nichols

Mindy Herman-Stahl, PhD, is a senior researcher at Public Strategies with more than 20 years of experience with expertise in areas of qualitative and quantitative (descriptive and multivariate) data analysis on service delivery implementation and outcomes, as well as the contextual factors that influence program effectiveness. In addition, she is well-versed in translating research into actionable and understandable dissemination products, including briefs, reports, webinars, presentations, and peer-reviewed journal articles.

Sydney J. Briggs, MPA, is a senior research analyst in the Reproductive Health and Family Formation research area at Child Trends. Her research interests center on the prevention of and responses to family violence. At Child Trends, Ms. Briggs currently serves as an analyst for the MAST Center and studies innovations in school-based reproductive health care service delivery.

Lisa Kim, BA, is a research analyst in the Reproductive Health and Family Formation research area at Child Trends. She is most interested in improving access to quality care for underserved communities and understanding how socioeconomic factors and racial/gender inequalities affect health outcomes. At Child Trends, Ms. Kim supports a broad range of work focused on innovations to family planning practices, adolescent pregnancy prevention programming, healthy relationships, and fatherhood.

Elizabeth Wildsmith, PhD, is Co-Principal Investigator of the MAST Center and oversees the Center’s building capacity activities. She is a sociologist and family demographer at Child Trends who studies family formation and reproductive health. Her research examines marriage, cohabitation, and childbearing, as well as how social and family contexts may increase exposure to, or offer protection from, risk factors associated with the negative health and well-being of women, children, and families.

The Marriage Strengthening Research and Dissemination Center (MAST Center) conducts research on marriage and romantic relationships in the U.S. and healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) programs designed to strengthen these relationships. The MAST Center is made up of a team of national experts in marriage and relationship research and practice, led by Child Trends in partnership with Public Strategies and the National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University.

The MAST Center is supported by grant #90PR0012 from the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation within the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The MAST Center is solely responsible for the contents of this brief, which do not necessarily represent the official views of the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, the Administration for Children and Families, or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

1. Collins, W. A., & Van Dulmen, M. (2006). “The course of true love(s)…”: Origins and pathways in the development of romantic relationships. In A. C. Crouter & A. Booth (Eds.), Romance and sex in adolescence and emerging adulthood: Risks and opportunities (pp. 63-86). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

2. Connolly, J. A., and McIsaac, C. (2009). Romantic relationships in adolescence. In R. M. Lerner & L. Steinberg (Eds.), Handbook of adolescent psychology: Contextual influences of adolescent development (pp. 104-151). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

3. Office of Family Assistance. (2020). Healthy marriage and relationship education for youth. https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ofa/programs/healthy-marriage/youth

4. Rhoades, G. K., & Stanley, S. M. (2009). Relationship education for individuals: The benefits and challenges of intervening early. In H. Benson & S. Callan (Eds.), What works in relationship education? Lessons from academics and service deliverers in the United States and Europe (pp. 45–54). Doha International Institute for Family Studies and Development.

5. Simpson, D. M., Leonhardt, N. D., & Hawkins, A. J. (2017). Learning about love: A meta-analytic study of individually oriented relationship education programs for adolescents and emerging adults. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 47(3):477-489. doi: 10.1007/s10964-017-0725-1.

6. Toldson, I. A. (2019). Why we should stop labeling students as ‘at risk’ – and the best alternative. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/why-its-wrong-to-label-students-at-risk-109621

7. National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Division of Violence Prevention. (2020). Preventing adverse childhood experiences. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/fastfact.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc

8. Pergamit, M. R. (2012). Locating and engaging youth after they leave foster care: Experiences fielding the multi-site evaluation of foster youth programs (Report No. 1). Urban Institute. https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/report/locating-and-engaging-youth-after-they-leave-foster-care-experiences-fielding-multi

9. Toews, M., & Yazedjian, A. (2009). Relationship education with adolescent parents: Challenges and lessons learned. Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences, 101(2), 62-64.

10. Herrman, J. W., Palen, L., Kan, M., Feinberg, M., Hill, J., Magee, E., & Haigh, K. M. (2019). Young mothers’ and fathers’ perceptions of relationship violence: A focus group study. Violence Against Women, 25(3), 274-296. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801218780356