Other
This guide from the National Center on Parent, Family, and Community Engagement is intended to help Head Start staff understand more about the role that positive goal-oriented relationships play in effective parent, family, and community engagement and school readiness. It includes definitions, tools, and guides for reflective practice and supervision. (Author abstract modified)
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Journal Article Mixed methods were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the Fathers Offering Children Unfailing Support (FOCUS) program. FOCUS is a diversion program which is designed to offer an alternative to incarceration for fathers who are noncompliant with child support payments. Quantitative data were collected through a pretest/posttest design (n = 55) and qualitative data were collected through telephone interviews with FOCUS instructors (n = 2) and community key stakeholders (n = 5) and focus groups with FOCUS participants (n = 76). FOCUS appears to be benefiting children by increasing their…
Brief
This Working Poor Families Project (WPFP) policy brief examines opportunities for states to play a prominent role in the evolving 2 Gen movement. The first section reviews the continuing need to address poverty in America, the history of 2 Gen strategies in America, the evidence suggesting the promise of 2 Gen efforts, and current efforts to bring renewed attention to 2 Gen work. It also elaborates on the WPFP's approach to 2 Gen state policy work. The second section examines the role of states in pursuing 2 Gen strategies, with a particular focus on the state systems and policies that help…
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Journal Article This issue of The Future of Children assesses past and current two-generation programs. But it goes much further than that. The editors identified six widely acknowledged mechanisms or pathways through which parents, and the home environment they create, are thought to influence children’s development: stress, education, health, income, employment, and assets. Understanding how these mechanisms of development work—and when, where, and how they harm or help—should aid us in designing interventions that boost children’s intellectual and socioemotional development, strengthen families, and help…
Brief
A two-generation approach to public policies brings together worlds that are often separated (focusing only on children or only on parents) to modify or create new policies that focus on the needs of parents and children together. Two-generation policies reflect strong research findings that the well-being of parents is a crucial ingredient in children’s social-emotional, physical, and economic well-being. And at the same time, parents’ ability to succeed in school and the workplace is substantially affected by how well their children are doing. Two-generation programs and policies are not a…
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This inaugural issue of Focus on Policy summarizes recent research on the ways in which the American family has changed over the past half century. Changes include how couples form partnerships, have children, earn a living, and struggle to get by. (Author abstract)
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Recent research has documented the complex living arrangements of today's children (FP-13-19), but less is known about the living arrangements of parents, particularly fathers. Because mothers are far more likely to have full-time physical custody of their children in non-intact families, many fathers do not live with their children. However, until recently, the research community lacked data that identified the living arrangements for all of men's children. This profile uses the 2006-2010 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), one of the few data sources that collects information directly…
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Journal Article The young adult years raise a number of intriguing questions about the relationship between fathers and daughters. How does the quality of their relationship throughout childhood manifest itself during a daughter's college years? In what specific ways is the 'well-fathered' daughter advantaged compared with daughters who had troubled or distant relationships with their fathers? What aspects of the daughter's college and early adult life are generally more influenced by her relationship with her father than by her relationship with her mother? This review of recent research provides intriguing…
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Journal Article Objectives: Postnatal depression affects approximately 15% of women in Western countries. There are conflicting findings about the effects on fathers as well as the extent to which fathers buffer against the negative effects of depression on children. This study sought to understand the ways in which maternal postnatal depression affects men and their ways of fathering. Design: Narrative interviews were conducted with 14 British fathers (mean age = 33.9 years) whose (ex)partners had experienced at least one episode of postnatal depression. Interviews explored how their partner's depression…
Brief
The Fatherhood Research and Practice Network (FRPN) convened a workgroup of experts in the field of fatherhood and father involvement to develop a research agenda that defines the state of the current research in this area, identifies extant gaps in this research, and generates suggestions for future research. The goal is for the workgroup's ideas to inform subsequent funding by the FRPN for evaluation and research projects that seek to enhance our collective understanding of the important role fathers play in the lives of their children and how programs and policies can strengthen this role…
