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Journal Article This editorial shares lessons learned from providing a parenting intervention, employment support, an internship, case management, and behavioral health services to young fathers in a community-based program, FatherWorks (an adaptation of Supporting Father Involvement), designed to reduce unintended pregnancies. These lessons were identified through monthly team meetings over the course of a six-year grant from the Personal Responsibility Education Innovative Strategies Program of the Family and Youth Services Bureau. (Author abstract modified)
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Journal Article In this article, we test how out-of-home placement affects men's labor market attachment, and in so doing we provide a novel parallel to existing research on how fatherhood affects men, which focuses almost exclusively on a child's arrival. Using population panel data from Denmark that include all first time fathers whose children were placed in out-of-home care from 1995 to 2005, we find that having a child placed in care is associated with up to a 4 percentage point increase in welfare dependency. Having a child placed in out-of-home care appear to aggravate conditions that likely…
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Journal Article Social service organizations face significant challenges involving fathers. This study presents the findings of a project between a maternal and child health program and a school of social work aimed at enhancing the organization’s capacity for engaging fathers in services. Results revealed that staff expressed a willingness to engage fathers but felt unprepared to do so. In detailing their experiences with the organization, fathers discussed the ways in which they had been engaged and their recommendations for improving those efforts. We conclude by advocating for the adoption of a bottom-up…
Other
The inaugural White House Community Roundtable and Town Hall Meeting on Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families was held in Chicago, IL, on August 5, 2009. The event was the first in a series of locally focused meetings designed to highlight the importance of fatherhood in communities across the nation. It provided a forum for responsible fatherhood program representatives, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers at the Federal, State, and local levels to discuss the successes and challenges faced by fathers and responsible fatherhood programs. (Author abstract)
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Journal Article The article discusses the answers on questions posed regarding public policy toward fathers with low income in the child support program. It states that the federal government must aim for additional funding to programs designed for the employment of low-income fathers in the child support programs that would increase employment and decrease poverty among low-earning fathers and their children. It notes that making programs mandatory and voluntary will be beneficial to low-earning fathers in the child support program. It mentions that said programs may include services like case management,…
Other, Brief
This paper analyzes legislative proposals that address marriage, and the potential impact on current fatherhood programs serving low-income families. The initiation of fatherhood programs following the passage of the Personal Responsibility Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act in 1996 is reviewed and current legislative proposals are described, including: the Child Support Distribution Act of 2001 and the Fathers Count Act of 1999, which combine child support reform measures with fatherhood provisions; the Strengthening Working Families Act, which contains child support distribution…
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Journal Article Child support is a critical source of income, especially for the growing proportion of children born to unmarried mothers. Current social policy supports custodial parent employment (e.g., the Earned Income Tax Credit [EITC] and other work supports have largely taken the place of an entitlement to cash assistance for single mothers of young children). Given many single mothers' limited earnings potential, child support from noncustodial fathers is also important. This raises questions about the effects of child support on custodial mothers' labor supply, and whether policies that increase…
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Journal Article Two-generation programs provide education and training services for parents while their children attend early childhood education programs. This study examines the rates of persistence and certification of parents in one of the only two-generation interventions in the country under study, CareerAdvance®, which offers training in the healthcare sector to parents while their children attend Head Start (n = 92). Results indicate that 16 months after enrolling in CareerAdvance®, 76% of participants attained at least one workforce-applicable certificate of the program and 59% were still in the…
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Individuals require many skills to be college and career ready, including academic knowledge, technical expertise, and a set of general, cross-cutting abilities called employability skills.Employability skills are general skills that are necessary for success in the labor market at all employment levels and in all sectors. These skills have a number of names--soft skills, workforce readiness skills, career readiness skills--but they all speak to the same set of core skills that employers want.The Employability Skills Framework is a one-stop resource for information and tools to inform the…
Other
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance released a toolkit that provides resources to assist programs with implementation of economic stability and workforce development (ESWD) initiatives The primary purposes of this toolkit are to provide programs with practical resources to: help HMRF programs implement ESWD initiatives; inform programs about evidence-informed ESWD practices and tools; and provide programs with a conceptual framework from which they can build a full system of care to move participants along a…
