Over one-quarter of all children under 21 years of age have one of their parents living outside of their household. When this occurs, it is often the legal obligation of the noncustodial parent to provide financial support to help pay for the costs associated with raising their children. This report provides an overview of these children and their custodial parents, including their socioeconomic characteristics and the types and amount of child support received from noncustodial parents.
The third State of the World’s Fathers report reveals new research on men’s caregiving from 11 countries, with additional cross-country analysis of data from over 30 countries. It calls for men’s uptake of their full share of the world’s childcare and domestic work – across all societies and relationships – to advance gender equality.
Fatherhood Summit Session
A father’s role is integral to his children’s social, emotional, and economic well-being, but several barriers may prevent successful co-parenting. Some of the challenges include high-conflict environments, the effects of incarceration, issues of domestic violence and substance misuse, and children in foster care or relative placements. Even when parents face such challenges, positive co-parenting is possible and can provide important benefits for children.
This session provided an overview of the obstacles, interventions, strategies, and benefits for coparenting across a variety of…
Fatherhood Summit Session
For some families served by federally-funded Responsible Fatherhood programs, intimate partner violence can interfere with the achievement of program goals. In such families, fathers may behave violently or use coercion or control against their partners. They also may be victims or survivors of violence themselves.
This session summarized findings from the Preventing and Addressing Intimate Violence when Engaging Dads (PAIVED) study, which outlines possible approaches for federally-funded Responsible Fatherhood programs.
The PAIVED study team conducted a comprehensive review of several…
Fatherhood Summit Session
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nationally, about 80 percent of noncustodial parents (NCPs) are fathers. Programs often need guidance on how to meet the needs of NCPs. In 2018, the Administration for Children and Families released impact findings from Parents and Children Together (PACT), a rigorous study of four Responsible Fatherhood (RF) grantees funded from 2011-2015. This landmark research highlights fatherhood program approaches to engage fathers, encourage responsible parenting, and ultimately, improve outcomes for children.
Drawing upon the PACT study, the panel described…
Fatherhood Summit Session
Research has shown that fathers returning to their families and communities after incarceration often face multiple challenges, including lack of housing or employment, large child support debt, and complicated family relationships. This discussion will explore a variety of ways in which fatherhood programming can help returning fathers and their families overcome these challenges.
The panel includes a researcher, two practitioners, and a program participant who will highlight strategies for providing reentry services and support for returning fathers. Based on Urban Institute research,…
This report, written by Wilder Research, a division of Amherst H. Wilder Foundation, outlines how to monetize the economic returns and avoided costs of outcomes typically associated with responsible fatherhood programs, plus additional potential, two-generation, long-term child development and family well-being outcomes of father engagement. It makes a strong economic case for investing in comprehensive responsible fatherhood programs, which would include GED programming, job placement services, diversion services as an alternative to incarceration, parenting education with play and learn…
Fatherhood Summit Session
Research shows that children benefit when their father is involved in their lives. That involvement includes not only his presence and the amount of time he spends, but also the quality of his interactions. This session explored how practitioners can support a father’s active engagement with his children to foster healthy, positive outcomes.
Presenters discussed five basic areas of knowledge and skills that practitioners can emphasize with participating fathers. The presenters also highlighted interactive, strengths-based, and solution-focused strategies, including a tool designed to…
Fatherhood Summit Session
Children who do not have consistently-engaged fathers can experience profound economic, social, and emotional fall-out. For boys who have been rejected, abandoned, or abused by their fathers, feelings of anger can become overwhelming and lead to destructive behavioral patterns. These patterns may be compounded by negative stereotypes, aggression, and societal expectations of “manliness.”
This session highlighted how addressing fathers’ emotions is key in any fatherhood program. The session began with a screening of brief excerpts from the documentary Spit’in Anger: Venom of a… The Behavioral Interventions for Child Support Services (BICS) project aims to improve federally funded child support services by increasing program efficiency, developing interventions informed by behavioral science, and building a culture of rapid-cycle evaluation. In the state of Washington, the Division of Child Support (DCS) is responsible for establishing and enforcing child support orders. For the BICS intervention, DCS aimed to foster a more cooperative relationship with parents during the order establishment process, in order to increase collections in the short term and…
