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Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy pp 1–3Cite as

Building Strong Families

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Building Strong Families

Introduction

The Building Strong Families project was jointly developed in 2002 by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), and the US Department of Health and Human Services. The project was developed to address the high rates of children in the United States who are born to unmarried parents (Dion et al. 2010). Current and past literature suggests that children born to unmarried parents are at a higher risk for many negative outcomes such as living in poverty and experiencing barriers to quality education than children who are raised by their married biological parents. To address these concerns, the Building Strong Families (BSF) project was initiated to serve unmarried, romantically involved couples who were expecting a baby or had recently had a baby (Dion et al. 2010).

Prominent Associated Figures

According to the BSF project report, the developers of the BSF curriculum were: Julie and...

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References

  • Dion, M. R., & Hershey, A. M. (2010). Relationship education for unmarried couples with children: Parental responses to the building strong families project. Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy, 9(2), 161–180.

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  • Dion, M. R., Avellar, S., & Clary, E. (2010). The building strong families project: Implementation of eight programs to strengthen unmarried parent families. Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, US Department of Health and Human Services.

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  • Hershey, M., & Alan, A. H. H. Z. (2006). Implementing healthy marriage programs for unmarried couples with children early lessons from the building strong families project. Washington, DC: Mathematica Policy Research.

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  • Wood, R. G., Moore, Q., Clarkwest, A., & Killewald, A. (2014). The long-term effects of building strong families: A program for unmarried parents. Journal of Marriage and Family, 76(2), 446–463.

    Article  Google Scholar 

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Alliant International University, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Shawndeeia L. Drinkard

Authors
  1. Shawndeeia L. Drinkard
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shawndeeia L. Drinkard .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Family Institute at Northwestern, Evanston, IL, USA

    Jay Lebow

  2. The Family Institute at Northwestern, Evanston, IL, USA

    Anthony Chambers

  3. The Family Institute at Northwestern, Evanston, IL, USA

    Douglas C. Breunlin

Section Editor information

  1. Council for Relationships, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Heather Pederson

  2. Midwestern University, Downers Grove, IL, USA

    Diana Semmelhack

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© 2018 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

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Drinkard, S.L. (2018). Building Strong Families. In: Lebow, J., Chambers, A., Breunlin, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15877-8_377-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15877-8_377-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-15877-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-15877-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

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