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Journal Article This article examines the factors deemed important to people when making custody decisions, focusing on a number of recent controversial adoptions cases in which courts have been forced to decide if a birth father should be granted custody of his child when the birth mother purposely fails to inform him of the child's birth or of her intention to place the child for adoption. Three independent variables from which eight vignettes were created are described, modeled on actual court cases: the birth father's knowledge of the adoption plan; the birth father's parental fitness; and the presence…
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Journal Article Administrative data was used to compare pre-reform and post- reform cohorts of teenage parents regarding the impact of reform on welfare enrollments, case closures, child maltreatment, and subsequent births. The relationship between mandated living arrangements to outcomes was also examined. Cohort differences were observed in enrollments and reasons for closure, but not in maltreatment or birth rates. Living arrangements were found to be associated with case closure. 12 references and 2 tables. (Author abstract)
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Journal Article In a longitudinal study of the effects of early childhood abuse, 92 adolescents who had become parents while under 20 years of age were compared to 297 adolescents who had not become parents during their teenage years. Three hypotheses are examined: that early childhood abuse and neglect are risk factors for subsequent adolescent pregnancy and parenthood; that low self-esteem is related to both early abuse and later adolescent parenthood and may mediate the relationship between them; and that adolescent parenthood is related to high school dropout and to other types of social deviance--…
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Journal Article The California Supreme Court has held that in order for an absent father to exert his rights in foster care proceedings he must demonstrate a prior relationship and commitment to his children. It has also ruled that failure to notify an absent or putative father of pending adoption proceedings does not violate his due process right, even if the state knows his whereabouts. If fathers want to protect their parental rights, they must assume parental responsibilities. The California statute requires that every effort be made to identify the father of a child. Once a father is notified, he has 30…
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Journal Article Many fathers are prohibited from seeking custody changes because of the legal costs involved. Parents with joint legal custody often have difficulties arranging visitation with their children. Some parents are difficult and frequently cancel, reschedule, or in other ways thwart regular father-child visits. If a parent becomes frustrated and the issue is not resolved, they may seek joint or sole physical custody. However in order to modify a joint custody agreement, a father must demonstrate such a change is in his child's best interest. The author presents a scenario of a father whose efforts…
The executive summary of the National Center for Children in Poverty's 2000 report finds several important developments since the mid-1990s that have critical implications for young children and their families. The survey finds the number of working mothers continues to increase, with 59 percent of mothers with infants under one year working outside the home in full- and part-time jobs. Seventy-three percent of mothers with children over the age of one year held some job, and fifty-two percent were full-time workers. The 1996 welfare reform act has played a key role in this increase, however…
Despite increasing recognition of the role of fathers in the lives of their children, home visitors and child protection workers usually perceive men to be the source of problems and do not include them in their interventions with vulnerable children. Social work tends to marginalize fathers and avoid assessing their risks or benefits to the family. This book outlines theoretical justifications for the engagement of fathers in child protection work and suggests relevant practice strategies. Important concepts from attachment theory, feminist theory, and nursing theory are highlighted. The…
The involvement of fathers in their children's' activities is recognized as a critical factor in early child development and the emotional well being of older children. This article examines research data on the importance of fathers' participation in the lives of their children, personal characteristics of involved and disengaged fathers, and activities that fathers more typically share with their children. The author notes that while activities such as helping with homework or engaging in religious activities might not seem special to many fathers, they are special to children and to their…
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Journal Article Using data from case records and from questionnaires completed by caseworkers, the author describes: contact between 132 fathers of children in kinship foster care and their caseworkers over a period of 12 months; and the fathers' involvement in permanency planning for their children. The data indicate that most fathers had no contact with the caseworkers during the period under study, and had never participated in permanency planning. Analysis revealed that paternal involvement varied significantly by the child's family composition. Fathers of two or more children from a one-father family…
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Journal Article Preliminary data from the National Evaluation of Early Head Start (NEEHS) program suggests that minority and lower income fathers are just as emotionally invested in their infants and toddlers as White middle-class fathers, this article reports. The data refutes generalizations that lower-income minority fathers are less involved than others in the early childhood development. Most published studies on the subject have relied disproportionately upon data from White middle-class fathers, according to the report. NEEHS provides a more racially and socioeconomically diverse examination of…
