Drawing on more than a quarter of a century of Panel Study of Income Dynamics data, this paper examines links between childhood home environment (as reported by fathers during those childhood years) and children's outcomes in early adulthood. The emphasis is on the role of fathers and the unique contribution of their activities and characteristics to children's development, measured in terms of the children's completed schooling, wage rates, and nonmarital childbearing in early adulthood. Results indicate that fathers' abilities add substantial predictive power to models based on maternal…
The Common Ground project brought together advocates, practitioners, and researchers who work primarily with low-income mothers and fathers, to develop and advance public policy recommendations to promote effective co-parenting relationships and ensure emotional and financial support for children. This first report focuses on issues surrounding the establishment of paternity. It begins by discussing paternity establishment before and after the passage of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), the increase of children born to unmarried parents, and…
This monograph describes Creating Lasting Family Connections (CLFC), a multifaceted youth substance abuse prevention program designed to promote the healthy development of youth at risk for alcohol and other drug abuse. Chapter 1 discusses the need for alcohol and other drug prevention initiatives, reviews historical trends in substance abuse treatment and prevention, and examines the impact of motivations on prevention practices. Chapter 2 reviews resiliency theory, the theoretical basis for the development of the CLFC program, and Chapter 3 describes the components of the CLFC program. Main…
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Journal Article Until the early 1980s, the needs of young fathers went largely unnoticed by policy makers and social service providers. Many programs for adolescent fathers originally started in order to benefit teenage mothers and their children (Leitch et al., 1993). It was later recognized that young fathers also need assistance to successfully become productive and responsible adults (Robinson, 1988; Leitch et al., 1993; Kiselica, 1995). Program designs have been based on a set of implicit assumptions: 1) if programs are offered, young fathers will enroll; 2) the services will meet the needs of…
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Journal Article Throughout the 1990s, scholars interested in fatherhood have generated a voluminous, rich, and diverse body of work. We selectively review this literature with an eye toward prominent theoretical, methodological, and substantive issues. This burgeoning literature, complemented by social policy makers' heightened interest in fathers and families, focuses on fatherhood in at least 4 key ways. First, theorists have studied fatherhood as a cultural representation that is expressed through different sociocultural processes and embedded in a larger ecological context. Second, researchers have…
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Journal Article Until the early 1980s, the needs of young fathers went largely unnoticed by policy makers and social service providers. Many programs for adolescent fathers originally started in order to benefit teenage mothers and their children (Leitch et al., 1993). It was later recognized that young fathers also need assistance to successfully become productive and responsible adults (Robinson, 1988; Leitch et al., 1993; Kiselica, 1995). Program designs have been based on a set of implicit assumptions: 1) if programs are offered, young fathers will enroll; 2) the services will meet the needs of…
This study examines the strategies that 11 purposively selected Welfare-to-Work (WtW) grantees used to design and implement their programs for non-custodial parents, usually fathers, including some of the mid-course corrections needed to improve services and client intake. It also summarizes lessons that can be learned from these efforts-- lessons that are applicable to the larger community of workforce development and social services agencies that would like to be more pro-active in serving low-income noncustodial parents. This study was undertaken to provide field-based information to WtW…
Across the country, public and private sector partners are joining forces to improve child care as part of efforts to improve the lives of children and families in their community. These partnerships take many forms, and have diverse plans for helping young children -- strategies include increasing public awareness of the Introduction importance of high quality care, spending money on more or better child care services, and advocating for changes in the way government, employers and others support high quality care. Each partnership may have a different action plan and a different…
Since father absence is associated with adverse outcomes for children, one would expect greater father involvement to obviate the negative effects of experiencing a single-parent family. Yet, many studies do not demonstrate that greater father-child interaction has beneficial effects for children and adolescents. This is because the quality of father involvement may be more important for children's wellbeing than the quantity. Using data from the 1997 Panel Study of Income Dynamics Child Development Supplement, this paper examines how father-child closeness may mediate the effects of family…
This fact sheet proposes ways in which welfare funds can be used to provide services to fathers. Some of the suggestions provided include: create eligibility categories for services that include fathers; include fathers in definitions of families to allow eligibility; ensure state agencies maximize this flexibilityto provide services to working poor fathers andtheir families to minimize the risk they will go on welfare; direct funding to provide employment andparenting and relationship services to fathers. (Author abstract, modified).
