Childhood Maltreatment Among Couples Seeking Relationship Education Services Calls for Trauma-informed Approaches

Data Source: 2003-2014 Supporting Healthy Marriage (SHM) evaluation.

*Maltreatment was defined as reporting experiencing emotional abuse, physical abuse, or neglect “often.”

**Includes couples in which at least one partner provided information on childhood maltreatment (N=6,217).

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Couples in which at least one partner has experienced maltreatment in childhood might need additional support from HMRE programs to help them recover from the trauma these experiences may have inflicted. If left unaddressed, the long-term effects of childhood maltreatment—which could include mental health difficulties, behavioral problems, and difficulty forming and maintaining healthy relationships—can hinder their family life and their children’s well-being. Individuals who experience childhood maltreatment are more likely to experience marital difficulties, such as lower communication quality, greater marital conflict, and lower marital satisfaction. A history of childhood maltreatment is also associated with difficulty engaging in positive parent-child interactions that can affect children’s development.

Given the high prevalence of maltreatment among couples who are likely to seek HMRE services, it’s critical that HMRE programs adopt trauma-informed approaches in their programming—especially since leaving couples’ mental health needs unaddressed may reduce the effectiveness of HMRE programming. Trauma-informed approaches involve increasing program staff awareness about trauma and its effects, educating staff on how trauma manifests in individuals and families, creating a safe space for couples that minimizes the risk of re-traumatization, and recognizing the signs of trauma among clients and responding appropriately. While federal funding for HMRE programming does not allow the use of funds to provide mental health services, programs can still offer a warm handoff (i.e., a referral) to partnering organizations that can provide these services.

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Footnotes

[1] For this analysis, “couples” refers to the husbands and wives analyzed in the study.

[2] Information on sexual abuse during childhood was not collected in the study. Thus, estimates are likely to underrepresent maltreatment experiences in childhood.

[3] Programs in this multi-site study varied in how they verified marital status. Consequently, some couples (18%) were not legally married at the beginning of the study. For simplicity, we refer to all couples and individuals as if they were married.

[4] The difference in the prevalence of maltreatment between wives and husbands is statistically significant at the .05 level.

[5] Hsueh, J., Alderson, D. P., Lundquist, E., Michaelopoulos, C., Gubits, D., & Fein, D. (2012). The Supporting Healthy Marriage Evaluation: Early Impacts on Low-Income Families, Technical Supplement (OPRE Report 2012-27). Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, & U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

[6] Lundquist, E., Hsueh, J., Lowenstein, A. E., Faucetta, K., Gubits, D., Michalopoulos, C., & Knox, V. (2014). A Family-Strengthening Program for Low-Income Families: Final Impacts from the Supporting Healthy Marriage Evaluation (OPRE Report 2014-09A). Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, & U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.