U program helps fragile new families beat the odds

Connie Fowler, 28, is candid about her childhood in New Jersey and Minnesota. It involved frequent moves, poverty and her parents' divorce, offered no example of the loving and stable marriage she one day hoped to have.

Then the single mother of a little girl met smart and steady Michael Fowler, 25, whose long-married parents were models of stick-to-itiveness and good communication.

But even when Connie got pregnant, she and Michael didn't rush to the altar. First, they wanted to develop skills to keep their young family on track and intact. They got those skills as participants in a five-year University of Minnesota project that will end Saturday with a banquet and discussion of some surprising results.

"We found that most of these couples are in romantic relationships and aspire to stay together," said project director Bill Doherty, Ph.D., professor in the U of M's Department of Family Social Science.

The federally and state-funded "Minnesota Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Initiative," was built upon the national Fragile Families Project, which Doherty said, "was a turning point in the way many of us think about unmarried, urban young couples with children. That project put to bed the notion that fathers don't give a rip and women don't know who the fathers are.

"Still, the gap between aspirations and ability to carry out those aspirations is pretty high. We designed our project to fill that gap."

While 17 couples got married after just one year in the program, Doherty said that the focus was less on matrimony and more on helping at-risk families attain long-term stability against often formidable odds. The societal fallout for abandoning these "fragile families," he said, is well-documented: poorer health, poor academic achievement among children and greater rates of poverty among mothers.

Enter the safety net

The U of M project recruited 96 unmarried couples with at least one child. Thirty-eight percent of the couples were biracial; 32 percent, white; 23 percent, African-American; a few others were Native American or Hispanic. They ranged in age from their early 20s to 40s.

Each couple was matched for a year with a relationship "coach" who guided them through challenges and connected them, when necessary, with a social worker who helped with housing, job and financial counseling and child support. In addition, couples came together monthly for social events (babysitting provided) and to meet "seasoned married couples" willing to answer anything on their minds.

So, what was on their minds? Things like:

Will we still have sex when we're older?

Why are there suddenly a list of things to be done when I sit down to watch sports on TV?

Carol and Derek Stevenson of Savage joined the project four years ago as one of those seasoned couples. They've been married for 37 years and have three grown sons. Carol, 56, a senior planner at NWA/Delta, and Derek, 58, a contract administrator for McKesson Surgical, also offer marriage education and enrichment through their Alive! Ministries.

The Stevensons' first couple dropped out (as did about 19 others over the course of the project). While their other young couple is struggling to find permanent housing for themselves and their 18-month-old daughter, the Stevensons remain optimistic.

"They have a lot of challenges, including communication," Carol said. "But they seem intrigued by us, a couple who have been together so long."

While success is difficult to measure, Derek believes that role-modeling successful partnerships "has been tremendous" for the participants. "They hear about our struggles, our disagreements, and how we worked through them," he said.

That is the certainly the case for the Fowlers of St. Paul. They are now the parents of two little girls, Jaydah, 2, and Marie, 13 months, in addition to Connie's daughter, Colee, from a previous relationship. The couple were married in March, after three years together.

Last Tuesday, Michael, who works in construction, reflected on the program. "It helped us to open up, introduced circumstances and situations that might come up," he said. "Humor is what keeps us going in this relationship."

As do constant reality checks.

"No family is perfect," said Connie, a medical assistant for an urgent care center. "You deal with your dysfunctionalisms."