"If You Build It, They May Not Come" Lessons from a Funded Project

Objective: This study attempts to uncover barriers to participation in a marital enrichment program that had been expected to be attractive to eligible couples. Method: Work products associated with a multiyear demonstration project were subjected to ethnographic analysis. Results: Eligible couples did not see congruence between the program's goals and their needs, and some were alienated from community agencies. Also, program personnel and the social systems in which they were embedded could not use feedback to change. Conclusions: Recruitment success requires shared goals, good-enough personal relationships to support work on those goals, and subsystem flexibility, throughout the intervention system.