Testing the Effectiveness of Integrating Relationship Education Into an Existing Workforce Readiness Program

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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The project will test the strategy of integrating 25 hours of relationship education into an existing employment program for low-income individuals ages 18-30. It will use a 2-arm randomized controlled trial to test the effect of this full package of services on participants' employment outcomes and relationship outcomes.

Detailed Description
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The study will examine the programming by FWCA, which currently offers the Career Pathways Bridge program in three locations in St. Louis County in Missouri. The evaluation will test the strategy of integrating relationship education into an existing workforce readiness program. FWCA plans to add approximately 17 hours of content from the Within My Reach relationship education curriculum to the two-week job readiness workshop it offers as part of the Career Pathways Bridge program. Second, FWCA will add up to eight additional one-hour relationship skills education sessions that customers can attend in the five weeks after completing the initial two-week job readiness workshop. The evaluation will use a 2-arm randomized controlled trial to test the effect of this full package of services on participants' employment outcomes and relationship outcomes. The target population will be low-income individuals ages 18-30 living in St. Louis County, Missouri. The study will aim to enroll 1000 individuals over 2 years. The Metropolitan Employment and Training (MET) Center will be the primary recruitment and service location.

Official Title
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Testing the Effectiveness of Integrating Relationship Education Into an Existing Workforce Readiness Program

Conditions
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Marriage, Family Relations

Intervention / Treatment
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* Behavioral: Workforce Readiness Program
* Behavioral: Relationship education


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: disconnected from workforce Exclusion Criteria: -

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 18 Years
Maximum Age: 30 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Treatment
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Active Comparator: Employment Services only<br>'Workforce Readiness Program'. job readiness workshop, organized into ten daily sessions over two weeks. The main content of these sessions will be a program-developed workforce readiness training, developed with funding from a DOL Career Pathways Bridge grant. | Behavioral: Workforce Readiness Program<br>* job readiness workshops, organized into ten daily sessions over two weeks.<br>|
| Experimental: Employment Services with HMRE content<br>'Workforce Readiness Program supplemented with Relationship Education': job readiness workshop, organized into ten daily sessions over two weeks. Program will add approximately 17 hours of content from the Within My Reach relationship education curriculum to the two-week job readiness workshop - and add up to eight additional one-hour relationship skills education sessions that customers can attend in the five weeks after completing the initial two-week job readiness workshop | Behavioral: Workforce Readiness Program<br>* job readiness workshops, organized into ten daily sessions over two weeks.<br>Behavioral: Relationship education<br>* 25-hours of Within My Reach curriculum and relationship skills education sessions<br>|

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Perceived romantic relationship skills | Six-item scale (α = 0.84) equal to the average level of agreement-from strongly disagree (= 1) to strongly agree (= 4)-with 6 statements. | 1 year after random assignment | 
| Perceived conflict management skills | Five-item scale (α = 0.77) equal to the average self-assessment-from I am bad at this (= 1) to I am extremely good at this (= 4)-of 5 skills. | 1 year after random assignment | 
| Support for going slow in romantic relationships | Single-item scale equal to the level of agreement-from strongly disagree (= 1) to strongly agree (= 4)-with the following statement: People are more likely to succeed in their relationships if they take things slowly. | 1 year after random assignment | 
| Disapproval of couple violence | Five-item scale (α = 0.77) equal to the average level of disagreement-from strongly agree (= 1) to strongly disagree (= 4)-with 5 statements. | 1 year after random assignment | 
| Any exposure to psychological abuse | Binary variable equal to 1 if the respondent indicates that a romantic partner has done any of the following in the past year: Try to keep you from seeing or talking with your friends Make you feel stupid Keep money from you or take your money without asking Made you feel afraid that they might hurt you | 1 year after random assignment | 
| Any exposure to physical abuse | Binary variable equal to 1 if the respondent indicates that a romantic partner has done any of the following in the past year: Push, shove, or slap you Punch or kick you or beat you up | 1 year after random assignment | 
| Any perpetration of physical abuse | Binary variable equal to 1 if the respondent indicates that they did any of the following to a romantic partner in the past year: Pushed, shoved, or slapped them Punched, kicked, or beat them up | 1 year after random assignment | 
| Involved in an unsteady relationship | Binary variable equal to 1 if the respondent reports being involved in an on-again/off-again relationship at the time of the follow-up survey and equal to 0 if the respondent reports being married, engaged, romantically involved on a steady basis, or not in a romantic relationship at the time of the follow-up survey. | 1 year after random assignment | 
| Had an unintended pregnancy | Binary variable equal to 1 if the respondent reports that they had been/gotten someone pregnant since study enrollment and that they did not want to be/get someone pregnant or the pregnancy came sooner than intended. | 1 year after random assignment | 
| Employed or training to improve job prospects | Binary variable equal to 1 if the respondent was employed, participating in a job training program, or enrolled in school at the time of the follow-up survey. | 1 year after random assignment | 
| Monthly earnings, administrative records | Continuous variable constructed from NDNH data that is created by summing quarterly earnings across the four quarters following random assignment and dividing by 12. | 1 year after random assignment | 
| Monthly earnings, survey report | Continuous variable constructed from survey data that is based on average monthly earnings from all jobs in the first year following study enrollment. | 1 year after random assignment | 
| Better off financially now | Binary variable equal to 1 if the respondent feels better off financially now than a year ago. | 1 year after random assignment | 
| Economic hardship | Continuous variable that represents how many of the following six economic hardships the respondent experienced since study enrollment | 1 year after random assignment |