# Presentation: 042972

## THE OKLAHOMA MARRIAGE INITIATIVE (OMI) PROCESS EVALUATION

**ACF Welfare Research and Evaluation Conference**
**June 6, 2007**
**Debra A. Strong, M. Robin  Dion, Heather Zaveri**

## How OMI Began

**In late 2006 HHS made grants to promote healthy marriage, adding to commitments made since 2002**
**Oklahoma had already begun addressing divorce and nonmarital childbearing, leading to the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative **

## What OMI Is

**The longest operating marriage initiative in the nation, and the only statewide one**
**A broad, multi-faceted **_**initiative**_**, not a program**
**Aimed at strengthening families throughout the state, rather than targeting specific income or demographic groups**

## Purposes of The OMI Process Evaluation

**Document and analyze the design, implementation, and evolution of the OMI**
**Consider its implications for practitioners, policymakers and researchers/evaluators **
**Provide context for potential future evaluation of program effects**

## Sponsor

**The evaluation is sponsored by the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), in the Office of the Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services**

## Today’s Agenda

**A brief description of the OMI**
**The evaluation:**
**Key research questions**
**Methods**
**Planned products**
**Early points of interest from the project **
**The OMI’s philosophy of change and implementation strategy**
**How Oklahoma laid the foundation for the OMI**

## A Brief Description of the OMI

**An ongoing effort to build sustainable capacity to deliver instruction in marriage and relationship skills statewide**
**uses a research-based curriculum adapted for a variety of settings and audiences**
**supports public, private, and volunteer workshop leaders who offer the curriculum**
**A campaign to restore support for the institution of marriage as a valued social good**

## The Process Evaluation

**Key Research Questions**
**Methods**
**Planned Products**

## Key Research Questions: Design, Operation, and Development

**What experiences, processes, or contextual factors led to the current approach?**
**What are the design and major elements of current OMI operations?**
**How are OMI activities implemented?**

**Notes:**
Design and elements:  Goals, objectives, philosophy of change
Main intervention strategies
Interactions between public and private sector
Structure and staff functions

Operations:  Services, service delivery systems, variations
Recruitment and referral of participants
Training and monitoring of workshop leaders
Engaging and keeping community support
Program funding and costs

Development:  Process for determining elements of initiative
Variance between what was planned and what occurred
Role of social, economic, cultural, religious, political environment
Strategies for obtaining feedback and for adapting

## Key Research Questions: Response to OMI and Implications

**How have public agencies and the general public responded to the initiative?**
**What are the implications of the OMI experience?**

**Notes:**
Response to OMI:  How many people volunteer to lead workshops and what are their characteristics?
How many people participate and what are their characteristics?
How do workshop participants react?
How has OMI affected public agencies, their policies, staff, or operations?

Implications:  Replicability
Lessons that can be generalized
Suggestions for assessing impacts

## Methods

**Semi-structured interviews**
**Observation of operations**
**Review of documents, materials**
**Focus groups with participants**
**Analysis of administrative and survey data**

## Planned Products in Addition to a Final Project Report

**Series of practitioner briefs to quickly disseminate information and lessons**
**An overview of the OMI (completed)**
**How Oklahoma laid the foundations for the OMI (summer 2007)**
**OMI’s use of research (summer/fall 2007)**
**Future briefs will focus on specific OMI programs, among other things**

## Main Topics Reported in Early Briefs

**The OMI’s philosophy of change and implementation strategy**
**How Oklahoma laid the foundation for the OMI**

## Philosophy of Change

**Improving relationship skills will result in stronger families by: **
**reducing divorce and nonmarital childbearing**
**improving children’s well-being**

## Implementation Strategy

**Strategy for**
**facilitating**
**change**:
- Make
- education in marriage skills
- widely available and
- encourage participation

- Build
- capacity to
- deliver services

- Build
- demand for
- services

- Build on
- research

**Priority 1**

**Priority 2**

## Priority 1 and 2: Build Capacity and Demand for Services

_**1.  Capacity**_
**Train and support public and private providers**
**Stimulate curriculum adaptations**
**Sustain statewide service delivery**

_**2.  Demand**_
**Train agencies to make referrals**
**Plan or coordinate community events**
**Create public awareness**

## Two Approaches to Capacity Building

**Train private individuals who wish to provide workshops in their own organizations or communities **
**Train the staff of public agencies to provide workshops for their clients**

## Public Agencies Providing OMI Services

**Public Agencies Providing OMI Services**

## Public Agencies Providing OMI Services (cont’d)

## How Oklahoma Laid the Foundation for the OMI

**Gaining political support and stakeholder buy-in**
**Selecting an intervention strategy**
**Developing a public-private partnership**

## State Leadership Gained Support and Stakeholder Buy-in

**Set a clear, ambitious goal**
**Began with those likely to support a focus on marriage**
**Included multiple perspectives in planning **
**Drew on available research**

**Notes:**
The governor, cabinet secretary for health and human services, director of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services each played key roles (describe)

## Selecting an Intervention Strategy

**Initially considered building broad public support for the institution of marriage**
**Recognized such a campaign might increase demand for services before they were widely available **
**Shifted early focus to building capacity to provide marriage and relationship skills education**

**Notes:**
Next steps will focus on building demand, and changing public norms and attitudes toward marriage

## Developing a Public-Private Partnership

**OkDHS became the “home base” for the OMI**
**This made surplus TANF funds available and increased the focus on vulnerable families**
**OkDHS funds and manages OMI, but contracts operational responsibility out to private sector firm**
**This approach has provided flexibility for OMI to evolve, and has enhanced credibility**

## As Implementation Proceeded, Goals Have Been Refined

**Commitment has continued through change of administrations**
**Goals have evolved**
**Initial commitment:  reduce divorce by 1/3 **
**Current goal:  strengthen families and build healthy relationships through readily accessible marriage education services**

## Why Is Understanding the OMI Important?

**Healthy marriage is an emerging policy area with unknown potential**
**OMI offers a laboratory for variety of  “cutting edge” approaches**
**Oklahoma experience offers information and lessons of potential use to other states **