The Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Local Evaluation Technical Assistance (HMRF-LETA) project provides evaluation technical assistance (TA) to federally funded Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood (HMRF) programs from the 2025 grant cohort conducting local evaluations. In September 2025, the Administration of Children and Families (ACF) awarded five-year grants to 108 recipients in 38 states and 1 territory to promote healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood among adults and youth ages 14-24.
A subset of these grant recipients will conduct a local evaluation of their program. The HMRF-LETA team will help grant recipients design and implement rigorous local evaluations that answer grantee-specific research questions, support program improvement, and contribute to the broader HMRF knowledge base.
The HMRF-LETA team will conduct the following activities:
- Offer resources, expert guidance, and support to encourage interest and build capacity among grant recipients to plan and design rigorous local evaluations.
- Provide ongoing and responsive local evaluation monitoring and support to help selected grant recipients successfully implement their evaluation plans.
- Lead a collaborative community to foster cross-grantee learning and engagement.
- Develop and disseminate public-facing products to promote strong evaluation practices, increase awareness of local evaluation activities, and support the use of local evaluation findings among the broader HMRF and related audiences.
This project is sponsored by the Office of Family Assistance and administered by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, ACF. MEF Associates leads this project with MDRC as a subcontractor.