Rigorous, Independent Evaluation of an ACF-funded program that uses Within My Reach

Report on one-year impacts of the MotherWise program just released!

The independent, federally funded evaluation team, Mathematica has released the one-year impacts for MotherWise, a Healthy Relationship Education program specifically for pregnant women and mothers with newborns. The program is strongly centered around PREP's Within My Reach curriculum.

To our knowledge, this is the FIRST major, rigorous, randomized trial of any program focusing their services around an individually oriented curriculum for adults. 

One-Year Impacts finding reported by Mathematica:

This study is a randomized, controlled trial (RCT) comparing women assigned to MotherWise to women assigned to the control group.

Among the findings, women in the MotherWise group showed superior outcomes on:

- romantic relationship skills
- conflict management skills
- disapproval of intimate partner violence

Among women still with the same relationship they were in at baseline, women in the MotherWise group reported higher levels of:

- commitment 
- relationship happiness
- use of constructive conflict skills 

There were other outcomes where the groups were not significantly different at one year, such as on co-parenting quality or relationship stability.

But, among the most striking findings, women in the MotherWise group were less likely to report having had an unintended pregnancy at follow-up. 

Why did MotherWise succeed in improving relationship skills and attitudes and reducing unintended pregnancies? As the evaluation team reports, one likely factor is the program’s stellar implementation by a very committed and hard-working team.

So to acknowledge that team's success and extend our congratulations to the them, we here at PREP want to say, "MotherWise you rocked it!"