NFPN's Position Paper on Fatherhood in the Child Welfare System was commissioned by the National Child Welfare Resource Center for Family-Centered Practice. The paper explores the research on fatherhood in the child welfare system, the impact of ASFA on fatherhood, best practices, and recommendations as to how the child welfare system can join the fatherhood movement. The paper concludes that there are currently no models, training curricula, training protocols, or technical assistance for engaging and involving fathers in their children's lives in the child welfare system. (Author abstract)
The purpose of this paper is to identify what we currently do and do not know about the contributions of fathers' involvement in very young children's lives. Specifically, we provide an overview of the relationship between father involvement and behavioral and cognitive outcomes among young children. Second, we identify aspects of father involvement that should be measured in the early years of a child's life that would help us understand and facilitate the beneficial effects of father involvement on school outcomes. Third, we describe variations in father involvement along the continuum…
The Agenda for Action seeks to encourage nonprofit organizations to focus their management practices and decisions on the results they intend to achieve for their participants. This focus goes beyond just measuring the results to actually using the results to increase the effectiveness of their services and improve their service outcomes. Put another way, the agenda encourages not just outcome measurement, but outcome management as well. Other performance measurement elements, such as financial condition and efficiency of operations, although important, are not addressed. (Author abstract…
This report is organized in distinct sections. The background (p.2) presents a brief review of theliterature, national and statewide statistics relevant to parenting, an overview of the Long Distance Dads program, and a description of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections and the State Correctional Institution at Albion. The objectives section (p.11) states the specific goals of the project and describes process evaluations in general. The methods section (p.12) details the procedures utilized to answer the questions of the evaluation (i.e., the description of the collection of both…
One hundred child welfare professionals, family service workers, court officials, and fatherhood program employees participated in group discussions held throughout the United States about the engagement of fathers in services. The National Family Preservation Network sponsored the events to determine the extent of agency attention to the needs of fathers and to identify ways to support father involvement in family life. The questions focused on the skills necessary to engage fathers in programs, types of services provided to fathers, barriers to father-child relationships, the impact of…
The Parents' Fair Share demonstration program was implemented in seven sites to test an approach for helping noncustodial fathers meet their child support responsibilities. Employment and training services, support groups, mediation services, and modified child support enforcement activities were intended to improve job stability and child support payments, as well as father-child relationships. The evaluation of the project compared outcomes for fathers who participated in the Parents' Fair Share program with fathers who were randomly assigned to a control group from 1994 to 1996. Overall…
