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In this review of preventive interventions to promote healthy families, we begin with an account of how sociology and psychology have helped shape conflicting interpretations of changes in families over the past 70 years as evidence of either family decline or positive diversity. We argue that in either case, well‐validated programs are needed to strengthen families across the economic spectrum. Most parenting interventions have been designed for, and attended by, mothers. We present an empirically based family risk and protection model to provide a rationale for interventions that also include fathers and focus on the coparenting relationship. Using an example of 7 clinical trials of a couples group intervention for parents from diverse economic and social backgrounds, we show that including fathers and addressing the coparental relationship as well as parenting contributes to healthier outcomes for mothers, fathers, and children. Finally, we discuss implications for the future of family research and policy.

In this article, we examine family‐based interventions designed to increase parenting effectiveness, fathers' positive involvement, and couple relationship quality, all with the goal of enhancing children's development. We focus on the fact that government funding policies, service delivery systems, and research evaluations of interventions to benefit children and families typically operate in separate silos. We provide a theoretical model, along with empirical evidence, to argue that a more integrated, collaborative perspective is likely to produce more optimal outcomes for parents and children than current siloed attempts to improve child and family well‐being. We discuss some of the obstacles to using evidence to guide policy decisions. We offer suggestions for policy makers and service providers in an attempt to describe a more integrated approach to supporting family well‐being, and to encourage the increased use of systematic data in making decisions about how to allocate scarce resources for family support.

To improve the quality and stability of couple and father-child relationships in fragile families, researchers are beginning to consider how to tailor existing couple-relationship and father-involvement interventions, which are now targeted on married couples, to the specific needs of unwed couples in fragile families. The goal, explain Philip Cowan, Carolyn Pape Cowan, and Virginia Knox, is to provide a more supportive developmental context for mothers, fathers, and, especially, the children in fragile families. The authors present a conceptual model to explain why couple-relationship and father-involvement interventions developed for middle- and low-income married couples might be expected to provide benefits for children of unmarried parents. Then they summarize the extensive research on existing couple-relationship and father-involvement interventions, noting that only a few of the programs for couples and a handful of fatherhood programs have been systematically evaluated. Of those that have been evaluated, few have included unmarried couples as participants, and none has investigated whether interventions may have different effects when unmarried fathers live with or apart from the child. Furthermore, although the funders and creators of most programs for couples or for fathers justify their offerings in terms of potential benefits for children, the authors note that the programs rarely assess child outcomes systematically. Next, the authors consider whether interventions for working-class or middle-class fathers or couples that have shown benefits for family members and their relationships might be helpful to fragile families, in which the parents are not married at the time of their child's birth. Because evidence suggests that couple-oriented programs also have a positive effect on father involvement, the authors recommend integrating couple and fatherhood interventions to increase their power to reduce the risks and enhance the protective factors for children's development and well-being. The authors emphasize the need for more research on program development to understand the most effective ways to strengthen co-parenting by couples who are the biological parents of a child but who have relatively tenuous, or already dissolved, relationships with one another. In closing, the authors summarize how far the family-strengthening field has come and offer suggestions for where it might go from here to be helpful to fragile families.

To address the problem of fathers' absence from children's lives and the difficulty of paternal engagement, especially among lower income families, government agencies have given increasing attention to funding father involvement interventions. Few of these interventions have yielded promising results. Father involvement research that focuses on the couple/coparenting relationship offers a pathway to support fathers' involvement while strengthening family relationships. Relevant research is reviewed and an exemplar is provided in the Supporting Father Involvement intervention and its positive effects on parental and parent-child relationships and children's outcomes. The article concludes with policy implications of this choice of target populations and the need to develop new strategies to involve fathers in the lives of their children.

AbstractThis study examines 2 overlapping longitudinal samples of U.S. couples with children, covering a period of 15 years after the first child's birth. The first sample extended from the pregnancy with a first child until that child was 5.5 years old and the second from ages 4.5 to 14.5. Growth curve analyses revealed that marital satisfaction declined over 15 years for both husbands and wives. Attachment security measured in the second sample was associated with greater marital satisfaction but did not buffer against declines in marital satisfaction over time. Husbands' lower initial level of marital satisfaction measured around the first child's transition to school was the only significant predictor of marital dissolution. The discussion emphasizes theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

Following an earlier randomized clinical trial, now with broadened sample criteria, 236 low‐income White, Mexican American, and African American couples participated in 16‐week Supporting Father Involvement couples groups, with assessments at baseline, 2‐, and 13‐months postintervention. Because couples in the earlier control condition experienced no benefits and some declines in adaptation, a control condition was not offered. Data from the original couples groups (n = 96) and controls (n = 98) served as benchmarks for evaluating the current results. Of 11 measures in this study, 10 revealed positive baseline–post 2 changes. Father involvement increased for current couples group participants, though not as much as for benchmark couples group participants: they showed statistically similar positive changes on six measures (decline in parenting stress, stability in couple relationship satisfaction, children's hyperactivity, social withdrawal, psychological symptoms, increased income), and greater positive change on two of three measures (reductions in parents' violent problem solving, children's aggression).

ObjectiveTo expand the evidence base of the Supporting Father Involvement (SFI) intervention to include child welfare families.BackgroundTaking a preventive father‐inclusive approach, SFI aims to strengthen coparenting, parent–child relationships, and child outcomes. This study replicates 4 prior iterations of the program using the same 32‐hour curriculum facilitated by clinically trained staff, case managers, and onsite child care and family meals.MethodParticipants (N = 239) included low‐income (median = $24,000) coparenting pairs, typically mothers and fathers/father figures, half of whom were Mexican American, with toddlers (median age < 3 years). Questionnaires assessing multiple family domains were administered verbally over an 18‐month period. Intervention effectiveness was tested through a randomized control trial with immediate treatment or waitlist–control groups using a moderated mediator structural equation model.ResultsThe model explained 49% to 56% of the variance in children's problem behaviors (intervention and autoregressive effects). The intervention reduced couple conflict, which reduced anxious and harsh parenting, leading to better child outcomes. The intervention was equally effective for community and child welfare–referred families and family dynamics pathways were similar across conditions.ConclusionWith its intentional outreach and inclusion of fathers, SFI offers an effective intervention for lower risk child welfare–involved families.ImplicationsResults argue for the utility of treating community and child welfare parents in mixed‐gender prevention groups that focus on strengthening multiple levels of family relationships.