Before You Tie the Knot: Impacts, Outcomes, and Lessons Learned from a Federally-Funded Premarital Education Case Study

Abstract

Human services educators continually seek ways to make outreach programming more engaging and effective. This study evaluated an ongoing relationship education program funded by the United States Department of Health and Human Services (Administration of Children and Families) to determine the effectiveness of the Before You Tie the Knot (BYTK) premarital education program. A self-reported, quantitative, retrospective-pretest-then-post-test evaluation was utilized to assess key objectives in the sample (n = 1285). Clearly- evident effect sizes were found for perceived behavior changes in the participants’ implementation of skills related to relationship quality (i.e., positive interaction, negative interaction, positive bonds, happiness/satisfaction, commitment, and not feeling trapped) covered in the training over a five-week period. Implications for how the BYTK program can facilitate change and learning in educational settings, as well as inform relationship education outreach programming, are discussed.

Keywords:

• Before You Tie the Knot
• premarital preparation
• premarital counseling
• relationship quality
• SMART couples

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s)

Notes

1 Certified Family Life Educators (CFLEs) (see NCFR.org), therapists, and counselors typically provide human services relationship education programming.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for the SMART Couples Florida Project was provided by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration of Children and Families, Grant 90FM0079. Services are available to all eligible persons regardless of race, gender, age, disability, or religion.