In 2013, the US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation signed a cooperative agreement with Child Trends in partnership with Abt Associates and university partners University of Maryland – College Park, University of North Carolina – Greensboro and New York University to create the National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families. As a hub of research on one of the fastest growing minority populations in the US, the Center publishes research findings, posts tools online and provides research opportunities for emerging scholars.

The priority areas for the Center include: poverty, employment and self-sufficiency; healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood; and early care and education. Within each of these priorities includes the evaluation of national panel data and surveys, development of research briefs that outline demographics of Hispanic families in the US, review of healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood programs serving Hispanic families, an analysis of qualitative data regarding low-income Latino first time unmarried parents, access rates of Administration for Children and Families services among Hispanics and the collection of data to evaluate how employment shapes Latino mothers’ and fathers’ views of child rearing.

This research project is being conducted now and evaluation reports are not yet available. Evaluation reports from the National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families will be added to the FRPN website as they are published.