hhs-2025-acf-ofa-zd-0013_rev3.pdf

Office of Family Assistance

Notice of Funding Opportunity

Application due July 29, 2025

Relationships, Education, Advancement, and Development for Youth for Life (READY4Life) Opportunity number: HHS-2025-ACF-OFA-ZD-0013

Contents

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 4 Basic information 5

Eligibility 7

Program description 9

Step 2: Get Ready to Apply 31 Get registered 32

Find the application package 32

Learn more 33

View the webinar 33

Step 3: Prepare Your Application 34 Application contents and format 35

Step 4: Learn About Review and Award 56 Application review 57

Award notices 65

Step 5: Submit Your Application 67 Application submission and deadlines 68

Application checklist 70

Step 6: Learn What Happens After Award 71 Post-award requirements and administration 72

Contacts and Support 74

Before you begin 3

Appendices 76

Modifications 80

Endnotes 81

Contents 2

Before you begin If you believe you are a good candidate for this funding opportunity, secure your SAM.gov and Grants.gov registrations now. If you are already registered, make sure your registrations are active and up-to-date.

SAM.gov registration (this can take several weeks)

You must have an active account with SAM.gov. This includes having a Unique Entity Identifier (UEI).

See Step 2: Get Ready to Apply

Grants.gov registration (this can take several days)

You must have an active Grants.gov registration. Doing so requires a Login.gov registration as well.

See Step 2: Get Ready to Apply

Apply by the application due date

Applications are due by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on July 29, 2025.

To help you find what you need, this NOFO uses internal links. In Adobe Reader, you can go back to where you were by pressing Alt + Left Arrow (Windows) or Command + Left Arrow (Mac) on your keyboard.

Before you begin 3 https://sam.gov/ https://grants.gov/

1. Review 2. Get Ready 3. Prepare 4. Learn 5. Submit 6. Award Contacts

Step 1:

Review the Opportunity

In this step

Basic information 5

Eligibility 7

Program description 9

Basic information Administration for Children and Families (ACF)

Office of Family Assistance

Providing healthy marriage, relationship, and parenting skills education to help youth successfully transition to adulthood.

Have questions?

See Contacts and Support.

Key facts

Opportunity name:

Relationships, Education, Advancement, and Development for Youth for Life (READY4Life)

Opportunity number:

HHS-2025-ACF-OFA-

ZD-0013

Announcement type:

Initial

Federal assistance listing:

93.086

Statutory authority number:

42 U.S.C 603(a)(2)

Key dates

Application submission deadline:

July 29, 2025

Expected project start date:

September 30, 2025

Summary The Relationships, Education, Advancement, Development for Youth for Life (READY4Life) program will provide funding for projects that offer comprehensive services that help youth build healthy relationship skills now and for the future (including dating, marriage, and co-parenting) while supporting positive socioemotional development and successful transitions to young adulthood. This includes healthy marriage and relationship education, parenting skills, and financial management and career advancement activities. The service audience is youth ages 14 to 24, including parenting and/or pregnant youth.

Additionally, projects are expected to include at least 12 hours of curriculum-based workshops and meet program participation targets. We are also interested in projects that implement one specific program model designed for a service population, such as youth in high schools, youth in out-of-school settings, or teen parents.

This is one of three healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood (HMRF) funding opportunities. The others are:

• Helping Every Area of Relationships Thrive (HEART) (HHS-ACF-OFA-ZB-0109)

• Family, Opportunity, Resilience, Grit, Engagement—Fatherhood (FORGE Fatherhood) (HHS-2025-ACF-OFA-ZJ-0014)

1. Review 2. Get Ready 3. Prepare 4. Learn 5. Submit 6. Award Contacts

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 5 https://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/ssact/title04/0403.htm https://grants.gov/search-results-detail/355694 https://grants.gov/search-results-detail/355696 https://grants.gov/search-results-detail/355696

Funding details Type: Cooperative agreement

Expected total program funding: $22,000,000

Total expected awards: 26

Minimum award amount for the first budget period (award floor): $400,000

Maximum award amount for the first budget period (award ceiling): $1,250,000

We plan to fund a 5-year project period. The project period has 5 one-year budget periods.

Projects will be funded within three scopes of service, each with specific funding levels.

Non-competitive continuation grants will be offered for years 2 through 5 of the project period, subject to the availability of funds, satisfactory progress towards performance benchmarks, and a determination that continued funding is in the best interest of the federal government. For years 2 through 5, your funding level request for each year must be the same as (or lower than) the amount in year 1.

Awards made under this funding opportunity are subject to federal funds availability.

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 6

Eligibility Eligible applicants These types of organizations are eligible for an award:

• State, county, city, and township governments.

• Special district governments.

• Independent school districts.

• Public and state-controlled institutions of higher education.

• Native American tribal governments (federally recognized) and tribal organizations.

• Public housing authorities and Indian housing authorities.

• Nonprofits with or without a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education.

• Private institutions of higher education.

• For-profit organizations, including small businesses.

Individuals, including sole proprietorships, and foreign entities are not eligible.

Other eligibility criteria Faith-based and community organizations that meet the eligibility requirements are eligible to receive awards under this funding opportunity.

Disqualification factors We will review your application to make sure it meets these responsiveness requirements.

We won’t consider an application that:

• Requests funding above the award ceiling.

• Is submitted after the deadline.

• Is from an individual, including a sole proprietorship, or a foreign entity.

• Is received in paper format that didn’t have a previously approved exemption from ACF.

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 7

Application limits If you submit the same application more than once under this notice of funding opportunity (NOFO), we will only acknowledge the last on-time submission.

An applicant organization may submit only one application in response to this announcement.

Cost sharing This program has no cost-sharing requirement. If you choose to include cost-sharing funds, we won’t consider it during review. However, we will hold you accountable for any funds you add, including through reporting. If you don’t provide your promised amount, we may have to decrease your award amount or use other enforcement actions.

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 8

Program description Statutory authority 42 U.S.C. 603(a)(2)(A)

Background Programs for youth and young adults to promote healthy marriages and relationships Youth approaching adulthood face complex decisions, such as choosing a romantic partner, starting a family, securing a job, or deciding on a career path. Some youth face even greater difficulties in their transition to adulthood, including lack of support for education, housing, health care, and employment. These youth may be at risk of early parenting, teen dating violence, sexual exploitation, and human trafficking. Sometimes they lack stable, supportive home environments and relationships with caring adults.

Services that build healthy relationship skills, such as healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE), can help youth successfully transition to young adulthood by strengthening their capacity to continue their education, begin a career, and establish healthy relationships. Research has demonstrated that the “success sequence”—that is, completing education, and obtaining employment, and getting married prior to childbearing—is correlated with lower poverty rates (e.g., Goesling, Inanc, and Rachidi, 2010). ACF reinforces the success sequence by funding projects that offer marriage and relationship education and, where applicable and approved, parenting skills and/or job and career advancement activities.

Assuring continued commitment to promoting this program Leadership in your organization, all community partners, and contributors supported through this grant are expected to be made aware of the importance of being equally invested in and committed to achieving all programmatic goals and objectives.

Strategic and structured collaboration among these groups is critical for the collective support of this program.

1. Review 2. Get Ready 3. Prepare 4. Learn 5. Submit 6. Award Contacts

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 9 https://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/ssact/title04/0403.htm

Program purpose and scope Our grants for serving youth are intended to help youth build relationship skills while supporting positive socioemotional development and promoting successful transitions to young adulthood. Relevant activities include education on relationships, healthy marriage, and parenting (where applicable).

We also have a continued interest in services for pregnant and/or parenting youth. Your program may serve young fathers or mothers under the parenting element of the marriage and relationships education and skills activity.

These grants may also support job and career advancement activities, including strategies related to employment, job readiness, employment training, and career pathways appropriate for or program participants targeted to youth. All job and career advancement activities must supplement marriage education and relationship skills activities—they cannot replace them.

Program elements READY4Life focuses on four critical elements that are essential for successful transition to adulthood. These elements can help youth plan for and pursue the future on their own terms:

• Relationships, including with:

◦ Interpersonal and romantic partners.

◦ Adults, friends, and family networks.

◦ Communities and workplaces.

◦ The youth’s parents.

◦ The youth’s children and their co-parents.

• Employment, including job skills, training, and placement.

• A strategic sequencing of life events, per each youth’s unique life circumstances, such as education, career opportunities, marriage, and delayed parenting.

• Physical, emotional, and social development.

Scope of services This program has three possible scopes of service. You must choose a scope based on your organizational capacity, and must apply for a funding level that aligns with that capacity. You must design a project that aligns your scope with a clear, documented need for that specific level of intensity.

• Large scope: $750,000 to $1,250,000.

• Small scope: $400,000 to $749,999.

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 10

• Emerging scope: $400,000 to $749,999. This category is for organizations that are not prior HMRF award recipients and express a need for and willingness to participate in capacity-building technical assistance from ACF. This may include assistance with the following project aspects:

◦ Marketing and outreach of programming.

◦ Fostering partnerships.

◦ Delivering HMRF services—for example, curriculum-driven workshops.

• Recruiting and retaining program participants.

◦ Staffing, including hiring and management structure.

◦ Managing data.

Programmatic objectives and outcomes This project will help ACF to continuously improve programming and increase positive outcomes for youth, particularly those transitioning to adulthood.

The objectives of this program include:

• Youth understand and differentiate healthy from unhealthy relationships.

• Youth acquire a vision of the kind of relationships they want in the future—including healthy marriages—and take steps to achieve them.

• Youth gain skills and tools that allow them to have healthier relationships today and in the future.

The short-term outcomes that we are targeting include:

• Developing or improving healthy relationship skills, including skills that support healthy marriages in the future.

• Developing or improving interpersonal skills with peers and family members.

• Developing or improving parenting and co-parenting skills.

• Progressing toward greater economic stability for participants with low incomes, including by attaining professional skills and employment.

• Progressing toward job and career advancement, financial planning and management, and budgeting skills.

The long-term participant outcomes that we are targeting include:

• Improving family functioning.

• Increasing self-esteem and well-being.

• Increasing economic stability and mobility.

• Reducing recidivism (as appropriate).

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 11

Program activities Program model Your project is expected to implement a specific program model(s), meaning an intervention that serves and is designed to meet the needs of its specific youth service population(s). Your model could serve one or more populations, such as youth in high schools, youth in out-of-school settings, or teen parents. Based on past performance data, we find that implementing one program model will help you achieve your enrollment targets, whether that model serves one or more populations. You may propose more than one model, but we strongly encourage just one.

We seek clear, well-designed projects that can thoroughly articulate their approach and implementation. Important factors include:

• A structure for the activities and services you will offer, aligned with the project’s logic model, objectives, and outcomes.

• Staffing plans.

• Training plans for staff, including refresher training.

• Partnerships with other organizations, as appropriate, for recruitment of participants, delivering services paid through this grant, and referrals.

• Well-developed oversight and monitoring plans for paid partners providing service delivery that include clear, detailed line-item budgets and budget narratives.

• A plan for participants that aligns with the target number of participants and accounts for attrition, and includes:

◦ Recruitment, with reasonable plans for project marketing and outreach.

◦ Enrollment, with intake and assessment process, as applicable.

• Retention, with strategies to retain the largest number of participants through the program to completion.

• Curricula that meet standards for hours and delivery format, and a monitoring plan that ensures the fidelity of curricula—that is, whether the curriculum is delivered as intended.

• Whenever practicable, a cohort-based design where a group of participants receives the programming together, over time, from start to finish that aligns with participant needs or goals, including online cohorts when appropriate.

• Additional services (such as case management, as needed) to address individual participant needs, support participation, and make links to services that are not fundable under this NOFO.

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 12

• A broad array of community-centered strategies to promote healthy relationships and marriage. If applicable, consider promising or innovative approaches to achieve job and career advancement.

• Systematic data collection and protection of personally identifiable information.

• Continuous quality improvement.

Your project should include strategies to ensure that participants complete the program model, meaning they participate in at least 90% of primary workshops.

Additionally, you should ensure that participants are tracked through enrollment, attendance, and completion, as well as other services you provide to address their needs.

Three healthy marriage promotion activities serving youth and essential areas of focus Under this NOFO, youth are defined in one of three ways:

• In high school, grades 9 through 12.

• High-school-aged, ages 14 through 17.

• In late adolescence or early adulthood, ages 18 through 24.

Grants awarded under this NOFO must support one or more of three healthy marriage promotion activities that are particularly applicable to youth, as listed in the legislation:

• Marriage and relationship education/skills (MRES), which refers to marriage education, marriage skills, and relationship skills programs that may also include parenting skills, financial management, conflict resolution, and job and career advancement.

• Education in high schools on the value of marriage, relationship skills, and budgeting.

• Public advertising campaigns on the value of marriage and the skills needed to increase marital stability and health. This activity cannot be a general campaign; it must support outreach for programming under the other two activities.

Essential areas of focus for healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) and skills building Whatever your healthy marriage promotion activities (see previous section), you will need to provide programming that addresses the essential areas of focus for HMRE and skill-building:

• Communication skills, including expression, discussion, and negotiation skills.

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 13

• Conflict resolution, anger management, and problem-solving skills.

• Knowledge of the benefits of marriage.

Healthy marriage promotion: MRES and education in high schools Marriage and relationship education and skills provided to youth, including education in high school settings, can help youth successfully transition to young adulthood by strengthening their capacity to continue their education, begin a career, and establish healthy relationships. It also provides the necessary concrete skills to achieve these goals. To address these needs, ACF funds organizations that are skilled at serving youth and young adults. You may propose activities that include the essential areas of focus for HMRE along with program elements that are essential for successful transition to adulthood.

ACF encourages grant applicants and recipients to administer programs that provide education in high schools on the value of marriage, relationship skills, and budgeting in a manner that is consistent with the principles in the Administration’s Executive Orders, including the following:

• Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing—The White House [Executive Order No. 14151, 90 Fed. Reg. 8339 (Jan. 20, 2025)]

• Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity—The White House [Executive Order No. 14173, 90 Fed. Reg. 8633 (Jan. 21, 2025)]

• Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government—The White House [Executive Order No. 14168, 90 Fed. Reg. 8615 (Jan. 20, 2025)]

• Protecting the American People Against Invasion—The White House [Executive Order No. 14159, 90 Fed. Reg. 8443 (January 20, 2025)]

To this end, ACF encourages grant recipients serving in schools, to the extent possible, to administer programs in school environments that align with the principles in these Executive Orders.

Job and career advancement (optional) Economic pressures and instability often contribute to relationship and family dysfunction. This is particularly true for youth who are transitioning out of foster care, runaway and homeless youth, and youth involved in the juvenile justice system. As a result, we emphasize the importance of job and career advancement activities within HMRE programs. We encourage you to incorporate activities that will increase participants’ economic well-being and employability skills, and help them secure employment. These activities must be offered in conjunction with other HMRE-focused activities.

1. Review 2. Get Ready 3. Prepare 4. Learn 5. Submit 6. Award Contacts

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 14 https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-and-wasteful-government-dei-programs-and-preferencing/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-and-wasteful-government-dei-programs-and-preferencing/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-illegal-discrimination-and-restoring-merit-based-opportunity/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-illegal-discrimination-and-restoring-merit-based-opportunity/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-american-people-against-invasion/

Job and career advancement activities should include a combination of the following.

You may also propose other appropriate services or strategies to help participants advance in their jobs or careers.

• Job readiness.

• Employment training.

• Career pathways.

• Aligning education and training programs with in-demand occupations.

• Career counseling and development, including:

• Assessments of skill levels, aptitudes, abilities, and competencies.

• Financial literacy, such as:

◦ Budgeting.

◦ Financial planning and management.

◦ Asset development.

• Encouraging education, including career-advancing education.

• Help with job search, job training, job placement, and job retention.

• Basic technology training.

• Pre-employment or soft-skills development, which may include basic academic skills.

• Coordinating with employment services and training initiatives.

You may provide job and career advancement activities directly or in collaboration with program partners. If you propose to provide these services yourself, you must have demonstrated experience in providing such services. You cannot offer job and career advancement activities as standalone services; you must provide them in conjunction with MRES or education in high schools (see the three healthy marriage promotion activities) throughout participants’ enrollment in the program. Participants in the employment program must also be engaged in classes or workshops, follow-up activities, needs assessments, or program supports.

Parenting skills for young fathers and mothers (optional) We are interested in funding programs designed to help young parents improve the personal, social, and economic outcomes for themselves and their children. If you are planning to provide services to young parents with this funding, your program should incorporate a skills-based parenting curriculum to help young parents learn and apply skills that help them:

• Fulfill their roles and responsibilities as parents.

• Reinforce parental practices that advance child well-being.

• Improve parent-child relationships.

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 15

• Strengthen healthy bonds between parents.

• Improve parental sense of confidence, growth, and purpose.

You must combine these activities with providing marriage and relationship education skills, including instruction on the value of marriage.

We are also interested in strategies, such as coaching, counseling, and mentoring, to reinforce parenting and co-parenting skills and advance child well-being. These strategies may address related issues and limitations that affect parent-child and interfamily relationships.

If you are providing parenting skills in your project, you must incorporate some of the components of parenting education and parent-child relationship enhancement services, including but not limited to:

• Understanding child development and child behaviors.

• Teaching children to problem solve.

• Communicating positively with children and other family members.

• Co-parenting.

• Setting limits and using nonviolent discipline techniques.

• Promoting child-directed play skills.

• Teaching about the importance of being an involved parent.

• Rebuilding and/or developing trust.

• Reducing family conflict and enhancing family relationships.

Public advertising campaigns You may implement public advertising campaigns to support program outreach (recruitment, retention). The public advertising campaign cannot be general: You cannot conduct a public advertising campaign without a connection to a program that provides direct services.

Curriculum-based workshops It is expected that your project will deliver at least 12 hours of curricula in a primary workshop. A workshop is a set of structured classes that take place in group settings.

Primary workshops are workshops that all participants are expected to complete.

Additionally, primary workshops are expected to be:

• Delivered in more than two sessions.

• Delivered over two weeks or more (and not over a single weekend).

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 16

You must deliver workshops that use curricula that are:

• Evidence-informed: Evidence-informed or promising practices bring together the best available research, professional expertise, and/or input from youth, families, and communities to identify and deliver services that have promise to achieve positive outcomes for families and communities.

• Skills-based: The curriculum should teach concrete skills and engage participants in trying out the skills.

• Relevant to the community context and the populations being served, including being appropriate for youth, including young adults age 18 to 24, or when serving fathers or mothers who are minors.

• Clearly and directly aligned with all NOFO programmatic objectives and outcomes as well as any project-specific goals and objectives.

Some youth relationships programs use a curriculum that has already been prepared and tested (sometimes called “off the shelf”), and other programs adapt or develop their own evidence-informed curriculum designed to meet the unique needs of their participants. If you adapt an “off-the-shelf” curriculum to make it more relevant, you will need to obtain written approval from the curriculum developer, and potentially OFA. Adaptations may include:

• Adjusting curricula to better meet the needs of participants served.

• Stitching together curriculum modules.

• Integrating additional modules into an existing curriculum.

• Implementing your own evidence-informed curriculum.

All curricula materials, including trainer guides, participant workbooks and other tools must be maintained in both digital and hard-copy options by the program. Curricula is expected to be delivered with fidelity and consistency across program cohorts.

Projects must implement curricula to:

• Help form, improve, and sustain healthy marriages with a future or current spouse.

• Develop and maintain healthy dating decision-making, strategies, and relationships.

• Improve communication with peers and adults.

• Aid in successful youth transition to adulthood.

Your curricula may address the following critical topics. The first three are required:

• Communication skills, including expression, discussion, and negotiation skills.

• Conflict resolution, anger management, and problem-solving skills.

• Knowledge of the benefits of marriage.

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 17

• Stress and anger management.

• Intimate partner and teen dating violence.

• Past experiences and its effects on forming healthy relationships (as applicable).

• Financial literacy, such as budgeting, financial planning, and financial management.

• Self-regulation and co-regulation to support healthy relationships and attain personal and community goals.

• Parenting skills (as applicable).

Additionally, your curricula must:

• Promote positive relationships, such as youth-partner, youth-parent, youth-child, or youth-peer.

• Include staff development and training components.

• Use technical support provided by the curriculum developer to support implementation fidelity.

To ensure curriculum integrity, curricula designed for group-based settings must be delivered in groups, and you cannot use them in a one-on-one setting (except for make-up sessions).

You may also offer supplementary workshops, that is, workshops to supplement the primary workshops you provide, such as workshops to address specific topics that would benefit some but not all participants like understanding credit scores or thriving in step-families.

Domestic violence Given high rates of domestic violence (also called intimate partner violence), it is likely that you will serve people who are experiencing or have experienced domestic violence, or who have engaged in abusive or aggressive behaviors against an intimate or dating partner, including teens. It is important to address domestic violence, intimate partner violence, and dating violence in your project.

You must commit to consulting with experts in domestic or dating violence, or relevant community or state domestic violence coalitions, when developing your program model and activities. You must work collaboratively with these experts to ensure that:

• All participants are provided access to accurate information about domestic violence and dating violence, including where to go for support or services.

• All participants are provided safe opportunities to disclose if they are or have been victims of domestic violence or dating violence.

1. Review 2. Get Ready 3. Prepare 4. Learn 5. Submit 6. Award Contacts

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 18 https://www.cdc.gov/nisvs/about/index.html

• Project staff and volunteers receive training to respond to disclosures of domestic violence or dating violence by offering confidential referrals to domestic violence services.

You might consider some of these strategies as part of a comprehensive approach to addressing domestic violence in your project:

• Comprehensive training for staff on how domestic violence or dating violence affects program participants and what to do if the victim or perpetrator discloses abuse after initial screening or later in the program.

• Comprehensive domestic and dating violence screening and assessment as a first step in providing services and interventions.

• Universal education on domestic violence and/or dating violence to program participants, as an addition to or alternative for screening and assessment.

• Partnerships with community-based domestic violence agencies.

• Safety planning to prepare for and respond to disclosed incidents of domestic or dating violence, intervene in crises, and make referrals to other community-based domestic violence services.

Child maltreatment You must ensure that your employees are aware of and trained on your state’s reporting requirements for child abuse and neglect. OFA expects that projects will consult with expert organizations on preventing, detecting, and responding to child maltreatment. Your project must include teaching participants about preventing child maltreatment throughout childhood.

Participant eligibility and service populations Eligible participants are:

• Youth in traditional or alternative high schools, grades 9 through 12.

• High-school-aged youth, ages 14 through 17.

• Youth in late adolescence to early adulthood, ages 18 through 24.

This program may also serve people who support youth in parenting children. This supporting individual may be a current or former romantic partner or another person who is actively helping raise the child, especially a relative of the child or the participating youth. However, the participating youth must be the primary participant.

Voluntary participation You must ensure that participation in programming is voluntary and inform potential participants that their involvement is voluntary.

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 19

Program participation targets This program counts a youth or young adult as “served” when he or she has received at least 90% of primary workshops. You should serve as many participants as reasonable, given the amount of funding requested and your program design. We have established minimum numbers of participants you can serve per year, based on your funding level request.

• If you are requesting $750,000 to $1,250,000 in funding, your project is considered large scope. You must serve at least 200 individuals, or 100 couples, per year, who will complete at least 90% of primary workshops.

• If you are requesting $400,000 to $749,000 in funding and have prior experience conducting activities under this funding, your project is considered small scope.

You must serve at least 120 individuals, or 60 couples, per year, who will complete at least 90% of primary workshops.

• If you are requesting $400,000 to $749,999 in funding, are not a prior HMRF award recipient, and are willing to participate in capacity-building technical assistance, your project is considered emerging scope:

◦ In year 1, you must serve at least 30 individuals, or 15 couples, who will complete at least 90% of primary workshops.

◦ In year 2, you must serve at least 60 individuals, or 30 couples.

◦ In year 3, you must serve at least 90 individuals, or 45 couples.

◦ In years 4 and 5, you must serve at least 120 individuals, or 60 couples.

To account for the project planning period, in year 1 large- and small-scope projects must serve, at a minimum, half of the number of individuals/couples listed here.

You will be held accountable to meeting the targets you propose in your application.

Addressing client needs Intake, enrollment, and assessment of needs Your project should incorporate rigorous intake and enrollment plans and strategies to assess participants’ strengths, needs, skills, and interests. You should use assessment processes or tools that help project staff make decisions about:

• The match between the program and the needs of the participant.

• Ways to increase to participation in the program.

• Any additional strategies for each participant based on their abilities and needs.

• The participant’s placement in training, education, or employment programs, if applicable.

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 20

Your strategies for intake, enrollment, and assessment should include the following, as appropriate:

• Comprehensive intake tools that provide information about participants to help staff determine their needs.

• Training to help the intake staff and potential participants determine whether the program will meet their needs or whether they should be referred to a different program.

• Initial goal-setting by gathering information to determine how best to serve the participant. This information may be used to develop an Individual Development Plan (IDP) when appropriate.

• Assessments, such as domestic violence screenings, intake surveys, barriers to participation, or family supports.

• Discussion about next steps after enrollment, such as assigning a case manager, reviewing the class or activity schedule, or addressing barriers to attendance.

Addressing individual participant needs You should include strategies to address participants’ needs by providing direct services or linking to community-centered support services. These services may include:

• Regular participant contact to help them meet their goals and to facilitate program retention, completion, and access to needed support services.

• More intensive services related to job and career advancement.

If you are offering employment and/or job and career advancement services, you must have strategies to address needs both pre-employment and after hiring. You should:

• Make regular contact with participants to help them complete the program and access support services.

• Have an orientation process, risk and needs assessment, and intake and enrollment procedures.

• Develop IDPs, if appropriate, that chart participants’ short- and long-term goals, objectives, progress, and milestones. These might include education, job readiness, and employment plans.

Note: If you provide services in a high school setting, you may not need to provide support services, given the duration of sessions and the limited interactions with or access to the students.

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 21

Grant-funded participation supports If needed, your project can include participation support costs that will cover services to reduce barriers to participation and improve program recruitment, retention, and outcomes. Some past grant projects provided transportation assistance, childcare, or meals during in-person workshops. We will discuss these services with you after award, during the planning period.

Partnerships We encourage you to use partnerships when designing and implementing your project.

Strong partnerships are critical to maximizing the effects of your project by leveraging resources, building community support, and increasing access to eligible service populations. Partnerships should be formalized through performance-based memoranda of understanding (MOUs) or third-party agreements.

Partners may serve as:

• Sources for recruiting program participants. However, you should not rely solely on partners for recruitment and outreach.

• Sources for developing, refining, and shaping program materials and plans.

• Implementors of programming.

• Referral agencies for services that are needed but not available through your project. That is, your staff might refer participants to these agencies for additional services.

If you partner with other organizations by issuing subawards, please see the limitations in the subawards section.

Housing We encourage partnerships with organizations providing housing assistance because you may not use grant funds to subsidize housing or provide housing vouchers or rental assistance. Stable housing is a key factor for vulnerable youth populations, including youth experiencing homelessness, combined households, runaway youth, youth transitioning from foster care, parenting youth, or youth returning to their communities from incarceration.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Some parents and/or their children may receive cash assistance or other supports from the local TANF agency. You may want to establish collaborative relationships with the state or local TANF agency. The TANF agency can provide you with potential participants, and your project can provide activities that can help young parents meet their TANF work requirements.

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 22

Child support We encourage partnerships with local child support agencies because you may not use grant funds for child support payments or assistance. If you plan to serve young parents, some of your participants could have child support orders. There are potential benefits in establishing strong, positive collaborations with local child support agencies. These collaborations can ensure that parents understand their rights and responsibilities in the child support system.

Other possible partners Your assessment of the community needs and service population should align with those of partnering organizations. We encourage you to consider partnerships with federal initiatives, local agencies, or other community programs. Potential partners include:

• American Job Centers, Workforce Investment Boards, and other Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act-funded employment training programs.

• Employers who offer apprenticeship programs.

• State, local, and tribal TANF agencies.

• Child welfare agencies and organizations.

• Legal aid and community action agencies.

• Criminal justice agencies, including prisons, jails, prerelease centers, courts, probation and parole officers.

• Head Start programs.

• Healthy Start programs.

• Local substance and mental health agencies.

• Public health services, including health insurance navigators and enrollment specialists.

As a reminder, grant funds must be spent on activities that are reasonable and necessary for the goals of the program, which means that grant funds may not directly fund:

• Health services, including health care, mental health treatment, or substance abuse treatment; nor

• Legal support, in child support or in other areas such as criminal record expungement.

However, you may partner with organizations that provide these kinds of support.

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 23

Organizational requirements Project management and staffing Your organization and staff must demonstrate the capacity and experience to carry out the project activities. You must include the following key project positions:

• Project director.

• Project manager.

• Data manager.

• Financial officer.

The project director should not be the authorized organizational representative. You must plan to hire one full-time project director, or a combination of a project director and a project manager where the two positions equal at least one full-time position and where the project director holds at least a 0.5 full-time equivalence (FTE). We strongly recommend hiring at least one full-time lead responsible for the day-to-day operation and implementation of the program and to oversee, monitor, and manage the project.

Geographic location You must have a physical presence in the community, city, or county where you provide services, even if some of your services are virtual. A physical presence means a demonstrated ability to directly monitor and oversee:

• Service provision.

• Staff and facilitator training.

• Programmatic, legal, and regulatory compliance in the service area.

• Agreements with partner organizations.

This physical presence is critical to ensure an understanding of the needs and resources of each community in which your program participants live, work, and strive to strengthen their families. In addition, having a physical presence enables participants to connect in real life with caring adults.

Entrance conference and annual OFA-led HMRF recipient meetings You must attend the entrance conference, which will be held during the first year of the grant. You must also attend annual OFA-led HMRF recipient meetings throughout the project period. The project director and up to three additional key staff must attend the entrance conference and annual meetings.

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 24

Planning period Large- and small-scope recipient organizations will be given up to six months for intensive and comprehensive implementation planning. Planning activities include:

• Updating and refining the need for assistance.

• Finalizing MOUs, interagency agreements, or other third-party agreements.

• Obtaining curriculum deviation approvals from curriculum developers, if needed.

• Finalizing domestic violence protocols.

• Undertaking procurement activities, such as identifying needs goods or services, selecting vendors, and establishing purchase and delivery schedules.

• Hiring and training staff.

• Obtaining security clearances for project staff to work with correctional facilities, if applicable.

• Training staff and setting up operations to collect performance measurement data in the Information, Family Outcomes, Reporting, and Management (nFORM) system.

• Developing a continuous quality improvement plan and program flow diagram—that is, a pictorial representation of the sequence of the program from start to finish.

Emerging-scope recipients will be given up to 12 months for intensive and comprehensive planning, capacity-building, and initial implementation, based on an individualized assessment of capacity strengths and needs.

Large- and small-scope recipient organizations may pilot their program models, or portions of their program models, during the planning period, as early as January 2, 2026, if they meet specific readiness criteria.

Emerging-scope recipient organizations may pilot their program models, or portions of their program models, during their planning period, as early as April 1, 2026. They must also meet specific readiness criteria before piloting their programs.

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 25

Performance measures, continuous quality improvement, and research requirements Performance measure data You must collect, store, and report data on standardized performance measures in the nFORM system. These measures fall into three areas to provide information on what you are doing and who you are serving:

• Services provided through the grant.

• Client characteristics and outcomes.

• Program operations.

Among other activities, you will need to ask all participants to fill out two online surveys: one at the beginning of programming and one at the end of the last workshop session. You will also need to record information on participants, such as when each one attends a workshop session. The HMRF Grant Resources nFORM page links to the surveys, the user manual, and other related documentation. You may use grant funds to purchase computers or tablets so participants can take the online surveys, headphones for those who wish to hear the computer read the surveys, and maintenance plans.

Continuous quality improvement Continuous quality improvement (CQI) is the process of identifying, describing, and analyzing program strengths and problems, followed by testing, implementing, learning from, and revising solutions. Collecting data through nFORM will give you valuable data that can facilitate CQI activities. We have also created templates that you may use to develop a plan for and carry out CQI activities. The HMRF Grant Resources CQI page links to CQI resources.

You must develop, implement, and regularly update a CQI plan that uses data and resources to improve program performance and identify areas for further analysis and improvement. You must develop your initial plan within three months of award. You will be expected to show evidence that you are carrying out, updating, and refining the plan. Your CQI activities should be linked to the project’s objectives.

Federal research activities The federal government sponsors federally led evaluations and other research activities. The federal evaluations will be conducted by independent contractors with experience engaging communities meaningfully at each stage of the research and

1. Review 2. Get Ready 3. Prepare 4. Learn 5. Submit 6. Award Contacts

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 26 https://hmrfgrantresources.info/nform2-resources https://hmrfgrantresources.info/continuous-quality-improvement https://hmrfgrantresources.info/continuous-quality-improvement https://hmrfgrantresources.info/continuous-quality-improvement evaluation, mounting small- and large-scale demonstrations, descriptive and impact evaluations, and a range of other research activities.

If you are asked to participate in federally led research activities, whenever feasible and where there is interest, you are asked to engage fully and adhere to all research and evaluation protocols established by ACF to be carried out by its designee contractors.

Local evaluations Post award, you will have the opportunity to submit a proposal to implement a grantee-led evaluation, often called a “local evaluation.” You are not required to propose local evaluation activities in your application for this grant or post award. If you wish to propose a local evaluation post award, you should include funds in your first-year budget to partner with an evaluator to develop the evaluation plan proposal.

If your local evaluation plan proposal is approved, you will receive supplemental funds for the evaluation. See local evaluation reports from the 2015-2020 cohort of grants.

Cooperative agreement—Description of ACF’s involvement OFA will work in close partnership with you and be substantially involved in various aspects of projects funded under this NOFO. Projects will be funded in the form of cooperative agreements that outline the roles of both ACF and the recipient. ACF’s involvement includes:

• Assigning a Family Assistance Program Specialist to monitor and collaborate with you to help you achieve project objectives and ensure proper management of federal funds.

• Providing significant guidance, consultation, and timely review on all project-related materials and deliverables.

• Reviewing, providing feedback on, and approving the project scope, activities, and work plan, including any changes to key personnel.

• Keeping you informed about expectations for successful performance. This includes discussing noncompliance as soon as possible and providing clear feedback on the conditions necessary for compliance.

• Organizing frequent consultations, meetings, briefings, teleconferences, and webinars to review current and planned activities, share information, and promote national coordination.

• Keeping you informed about OFA, ACF, and HHS priorities.

We do not expect that the cooperative agreement will change the project requirements for the recipients under this NOFO.

1. Review 2. Get Ready 3. Prepare 4. Learn 5. Submit 6. Award Contacts

Step 1: Review the Opportunity 27 https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ofa/programs/healthy-marriage-responsible-fatherhood/data-reports

Note: Consistent with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995 (44 U.S.C. §§ 3501-3521), OFA will not conduct or sponsor—and a person is not required to respond to—a collection of information covered by such Act, unless it displays a currently valid Office of Management and Budget (OMB) control number. If activities under this cooperative agreement are subject to PRA, OFA will work with the funding recipient to obtain OMB approval.

Funding policies and limitations General policies

• We will only make awards if this program receives funding. If Congress appropriates funds for this purpose, we will move forward with the review and award process.

• Support beyond the first budget period will depend on:

◦ Appropriation of funds.

◦ Satisfactory progress in meeting your project’s objectives.

◦ A decision that continued funding is in the government’s best interest.

• If we receive more funding for this program, we will consider:

◦ Funding more applicants.

◦ Extending the period of performance.

◦ Awarding supplemental funding.

ACF does not allow funds awarded under this NOFO to support any costs related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) activities, including research in support of such initiatives, and any other initiatives that discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin or another protected characteristic.