The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance on July 20 announced the availability of funding for four discretionary grant awards totaling $150 million for Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood grants. These grants will go to help fathers meet their parenting and financial responsibilities to their children and assist married couples or those considering marriage in building strong relationships with each other and their children.
The Responsible Fatherhood program has $75 million in new funding intended to promote or sustain responsible parenting, marriage and economic stability. The Healthy Marriage program has $75 million in new funding intended for pre-marital education; marriage enhancement programs; divorce reduction programs; marriage mentoring programs; and skills programs that may include parenting skills, financial management, conflict resolution and job and career advancement.

The funding opportunity announcements made available include

• Community-Centered Healthy Marriage and Relationship grants support programs that have the capacity and proven track record of providing a broad range of healthy marriage and relationship skills training.
• Pathways to Responsible Fatherhood grants support organizations that demonstrate the ability to successfully promote responsible fatherhood, including economic stability, responsible parenting, and healthy marriage and relationship skills.  
• Community-Centered Responsible Fatherhood Ex-Prisoner Re-Entry Pilot Project grants support re-entry programs that provide Responsible Fatherhood pre- and post-release case management services to recently released or re-entering fathers and mothers.  
• National Resource Center for Strategies to Promote Healthy Marriage grants support the development, implementation and management of a resource center to gather, develop, and disseminate information and research related to promoting healthy marriage.

For more information on the Office of Family Assistance visit http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/.

For more information regarding these Funding Opportunity Announcements visit http://www.acf.hhs.gov/grants/open/foa.

For more information on Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood visit http://www.fatherhood.gov.