 Healthy Marriage
Program Goal
The Division of Budget, Policy, and Data Analysis is responsible for administering the Refugee Healthy Marriage Program (RHMP) which funds 10 grantees at approximately $4 million. The RHMP supports several ACF initiatives that promote and encourage healthy marriages and strengthen families.
The RHMP was created on the belief that the flight from persecution and long periods of insecurity create unique difficulties for refugee couples. Marriage education is a social service that can help refugees cope with these difficulties. The RHMP is committed to promoting policies and programs that strengthen marriage as an institution and help refugee parents raise their children in positive and healthy environments. The program’s goal is the formation, promotion, and stability of healthy marriages among refugees.
General Background
The cultures of most refugee populations are built upon successful and stable family life. This strength is worthy of preservation and ORR seeks, through this program to support activities toward that end.
ORR believes that the flight from persecution and long periods of insecurity create unique difficulties for refugee couples. Marriage education is a social service that can help refugees cope with these difficulties. ORR also believes that there are benefits to marriage that extend to children, adults and to society. ORR is committed to promoting policies and programs that help strengthen marriage as an institution and help refugee parents raise their children in positive and healthy environments. The desired outcome from these grants is the formation, promotion, and stability of healthy marriages among refugees.
The primary activity of these grants is marriage education, which includes the following core activities: (1) marriage education for refugee couples, (2) pre-marriage education for couples who are contemplating marriage, and (3) marriage education for mentor couples to assist young or newly married couples.
Refugee couples, especially married couples, are the primary target group for this cooperative agreement. Services are offered in a seminar or workshop setting that improves a couple's ability to form and sustain a healthy marriage. Through workshops, seminars, or classroom attendance, refugee couples learn and apply skills that improve communication between spouses, enhance their ability to resolve family conflicts, and strengthen their commitment to increasing marital stability. Courses are designed so that workshop participants are expected to practice communication exercises and improve their skills between sessions. The coursework for each participant is expected to be eight hours or longer (or commensurate with established guidelines of the author of the model used) over a period of no less than two weeks.
Projects are designed to translate and adapt contemporary American approaches to marriage education to traditional refugee communities, taking into account refugee traditional practices and cultural settings. ORR supports creative and unique approaches that address the needs of refugee families as well as the development of strategies for partnerships with marriage education organizations. These projects are designed to translate and adapt contemporary American approaches to traditional practices and cultural settings.
For this program, grantees—
- Develop culturally and linguistically appropriate marriage education materials to be used in training local refugee communities;
- Provide culturally and linguistically appropriate marriage education to refugee couples to help them improve their marriages;
- Train refugee couples to act as mentors in their ethnic community; and
- Develop local refugee healthy marriage libraries to help enhance the relationships in refugee families.
In addition to the core activities mentioned above, grantees offer other family enrichment programs, such as (1) family conflict resolution and parenting programs for parents of teenagers or (2) healthy dating and marriage expectation classes for teenagers. These ancillary programs are used as gateway programs to bring parents into the core programs of marriage education.
Funding Opportunities
Contact Information
Office of Refugee Resettlement
Administration for Children and Families
901 D Street, SW
Washington, DC 20447
Phone: 202.401.9246
Fax: 202.401.548