This brief highlights findings from research about the impact of father involvement on child development and well-being. The literature includes studies of intact families, as well as families in which children do not live with their father. In general, the research indicates that fathers can have a significant impact on cognitive development, academic achievement, and social development, especially when they participate in child care tasks and utilize a warm and nurturing parenting style. Child support is associated with positive cognitive, academic, and behavioral outcomes for children…
This report includes perspectives from domestic violence advocates, batterer program representatives, and fatherhood program representatives on the scope and challenges of fatherhood programs. Participants attended two meetings held in May 2001 and July 2002, to discuss the variety of issues confronting fatherhood programs. One of the key concerns discussed was the inclusion of domestic violence information in such programs. The report shares participants' views on the prevalence of domestic violence and the characteristics of fathers attending fatherhood programs, barriers to…
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Designed for social service providers, this document reviews public policies affecting fatherhood programs and offers recommendations for programs. It begins by discussing the impact of federal public policy on fatherhood programs and the inclusion of marriage promotion in social welfare policy. The trend towards stricter enforcement of child support requirements is noted, barriers impeding collaboration between fatherhood programs and social welfare programs are explored, and strategies fatherhood programs can use to promote collaboration with child support agencies are offered. The movement…
Rates of births to teenage parents are high and there is also a high incidence of poor outcomes among the children of teenage parents including developmental and learning problems, and child maltreatment. Parenting programmes may have an important role to play in improving outcomes for both teenage parents and their children. The aim of this review was to examine the effectiveness of individual and/or group based parenting programmes in improving psychosocial and developmental outcomes in teenage mothers and their children. A range of biomedical and social science databases were searched.…
The Welfare Peer Technical Assistance Network held a roundtable in November 2003 to discuss best practices for strengthening families separated by parental incarceration. Participants reviewed national trends and examined the components of state initiatives designed to reduce recidivism and alleviate the negative impact of parental incarceration on children. Emphasis was placed on improving parenting skills and nurturing parent-child relationships. This final report summarizes the challenges identified by programs, such as the lack of family stability, limited parenting skills, child support…
This report discusses the outcomes of an evaluation of Healthy Families Arizona, a home visitation program designed to provide supportive services and education to parents of newborns who might benefit from support to strengthen their families. The program is intended to promote positive parent/child interaction and child health, and prevent child abuse and neglect. All services are voluntary and assistance is typically provided for 12 to 18 months but may be provided for up to five years. This report focuses on aggregate data that are summarized across the 23 sites that make up the Healthy…
The Responsible Fatherhood Management Information System was designed by The Lewin Group to provide a mechanism for fatherhood demonstration programs to track participation. The system stores data about the characteristics of participants, services, outcomes, and costs. The elements can be customized to address the specific requirements of each program. This manual provides printed copies of data forms and instructions for using the system. Sample data entry screens and lists of data fields are included.
The People Achieving Responsibility through Education, Nurturing, and Training (PARENT) program was implemented in Larimer County, Colorado to equip non-custodial parents to support their children emotionally and financially. Services include parenting skills education, employment assistance, case management, and referral. A grant from the federal Office of Support Enforcement was used to pay the child support obligations of compliant participants on a temporary basis. This report presents the findings of an evaluation of the PARENT program which considered attendance and characteristics…
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How well is your agency or organization meeting the needs of fathers? What services and programs do you offer that are father-friendly? This brief questionnaire from the Washington State Fathers Network can help you evaluate your own readiness to meet the needs of dads. (Author abstract)
This report discusses six programs being considered by the 108th Congress for reauthorization, focusing on policies designed to assist disconnected and at-risk youth. The review seeks to identify how the programs do or do not consider at-risk or disconnected youth ad how such programs might be improved. After an introduction by Alan Houseman, six papers include: "The Adult Education and Family Literacy Act and Disconnected Youth" (Cynthia G. Brown and Andy Hartman); "The Higher Education Act and Disconnected Youth" (Thomas R. Wolanin); "The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and…
