1. Do you have a website?
http://www.uga.edu/prosaaf/

2. What is the source of your funding? 
The Administration for Children and Families, United States Department of Health and Human Services.

3. What is the eligibility criteria?
An African American adult at least 21 years of age who has a mate (of any age or any race) who is also willing to participate. The couple must be married or planning to marry with a definite date in mind. Couples must live together, and reside with an adolescent child 10- to 16-years of age that they assume primary responsibility for parenting together. Couples must also be willing to spend six weeks in an in-home educational program. Couples must also have a 10- to 16-year old adolescent (i.e., teen lives with and is parented by the adult and mate) that is willing to answer questions about their experiences.

4. Are interracial couples eligible?
Yes. Our eligibility criteria states that any African American adult at least 21 years of age who has a mate (of any age or any race) who is also willing to participate is welcome to take part in the program.

5. Can I view a copy of the curriculum materials? 
Unfortunately no because we are still in the testing phase of the program. However, ProSAAF will be available for those that are interested in reviewing the curriculum and adopting it for their use after the research phase of the project is completed.

6. Tell me about your curriculum.
The educational program incorporates curriculum from the Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP) and the Strong African American Families (SAAF) programs. PREP is one of the most comprehensive and well respected divorce-prevention/marriage enhancing programs in the world. PREP is a skills and principles-building curriculum designed to help partners say what they need to say, get to the heart of problems, and increase their connection with each other. The program, created and developed at the University of Denver, has been in existence for over 30 years. The SAAF curriculum, developed specifically for African American parents and their adolescent children, is focused on strengthening positive family interactions and enhancing parents’ efforts to help their children establish and reach positive goals during the critical transition between childhood and adolescence.

7. What happens if I enroll today? 
We will collect contact information for you and your mate and ensure that you meet the eligibility criteria for the program. Once we begin working with couples in your area, you will receive a letter in the mail that will provide detailed information to you and your mate about next steps.

8. Can you come to my church? 
Thank you for the invitation to worship with you and your congregation. Send us your information, and we will get back to you about possible dates and times that we would visit your church.

9. What measures, if any, are taken to ensure that my information remains confidential?
First, all interviewers are required to sign a note of confidentiality. Second, you are only referred to by a generic number after we collect your contact information. Third, only the research team has access to your information. Fourth, all of your information is stored in locked rooms or on password-protected computer servers. Fifth, and lastly, we do not look at individual data in the analyses but rather only look at data across individuals at the group-level.

10. “I do not need counseling.”
ProSAAF does not offer counseling but rather is an educational program that seeks to enrich couples’ relationships and parenting skills regardless of their experiences.

11. Who’s in charge of the project? 
Dr. Steven Beach is the lead investigator (i.e., principal investigator). He is joined by a team of other investigators (i.e., co-investigators) that include Drs. Gene Brody, Steven Kogan, and Velma McBride Murry, of the University of Georgia.  We also are fortunate to have the support of several consultants: Rev. Dr. Jerry Alexander of Springfield Baptist Church in Athens, GA; Rev. Dr. Kenneth Board of Pilgrim Baptist Church in Rockford, IL; Dr. Frank Fincham of Florida State University; Dr. K. Daniel O’Leary of State University of New York-Stony Brook; Dr. Scott Stanley of the University of Denver and the Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program, Incorporated (PREP); and Elder Terris Thomas of Timothy Baptist Church in Athens, GA.

12. “Men won’t buy this.”
Men do have some reservations about participating in research and we learned about their concerns in a focus group in November 2005. For men that are unsure about participating, we ask one of our ProSAAF Ambassadors to contact them. ProSAAF Ambassadors are a group of men that are committed to the project and to the importance of strengthening marriages. Often times, after the ambassadors reach the prospective men, the couple decides to enroll.

13. What’s special about the curriculum?
First, the PREP curriculum shortened from a 15 weeks program to a marriage course that meets in three sessions, in hopes of appealing to couples who often times must balance work and family.

Second, by including material and activities that recognize how institutional and implicit racism affects and works against the success of African American marriages, the curriculum has been adapted to an African American audience.

Third, we offer a three session parenting program that has especially designed for African American couples.

14. What’s the in-home interview? 
In-home interviews are conducted four times over a two year period. Couples are interviewed in their homes at a convenient time for them. Each interview lasts approximately 2 hours. Laptop computers are used to collect information on health and well-being, daily routines, parenting, marital relationship quality, and marital interaction.

15. Why is important to assign couples to different groups?
The purpose of ProSAAF is to test whether or not having a facilitator visit at home increases the value of the educational program.  The program is structured this way to allow us to find out if adding components increases the ability of the ProSAAF program to increase its effectiveness.

16. What are the two groups?
The two groups are a group that involves no meetings, and a second group that involves meetings in-home.  

17. Who are your facilitators?
They are a group of married African American adults that are well-respected members of their community.

18. What will you do with the data?
The information provided by each individual couple is kept strictly confidential. After all the couples have been interviewed, all of the information is grouped together and analyses are conducted for the whole sample. Ultimately, the information from this study about couples will be used to inform service agencies, policy makers, and other marriage scholars and those interested in relationship enhancement programs that are uniquely designed for the African American community.

19. Can I get a copy of the data? 
Unfortunately, no. We adhere to strict guidelines from the university’s Institutional Review Board that ensures that confidentiality is maintained to protect study participants. We would be happy though to provide you with published material that describes our findings when they become available.