Brief
The rapid development of fathering programs has been accompanied by renewed efforts to define good fathering. Programs to promote good fathering have emerged in complex social environments with limited evaluation of effective practice. This paper will address two major issues that fathering programs face in the 1990s. The first issue is the need for a guiding image of good fathering that can be applied to the diverse set of fathering programs that currently exist. The second issue is the identification of effective practice that moves beyond specific case studies to a more general approach to…
Over the past decade, fathering programs of various kinds have proliferated in a number of different contexts. These programs are faced with two critical issues. The first is the need for a practical, inclusive, yet challenging framework to guide effective practice in diverse settings. A definition of good fathering as generative fathering is presented. A conceptual model of reflective practice as applied to fathering programs is described. The presentation of the model of reflective practice includes discussions of practitioner relationships, characteristics of reflective practice in action…
An examination of the role of unwed fathers, this working paper challenges the common perception that unwed fathers are not active participants in their children's' lives. Research statistics on unmarried fathers, mothers and their children may be incorrect in concluding that most unmarried fathers abandon their children or less attached than those in other countries. The authors examine reasons why these prior studies may not be accurate, including overrepresentation of minority and teen parents in study populations, and other factors, especially in the first years after birth. Analysis of…
Brief
This brief summarizes key research findings on the relationship between father involvement and child outcomes. As rates of divorce and nonmarital childbearing have increased in recent decades, the percentage of children and fathers who live apart from one another has also increased. Yet our knowledge of how father involvement affects children's well-being in these situations is quite limited, since most research on fathers and children has focused on intact families. This brief summarizes that larger body of research, as well as the relatively small group of studies that consider fathers who…
The potential of fathers to improve the health and welfare of children and families has emerged as a major social and political issue. This publication explains why fathers are so important in achieving good outcomes for children and families and what community foundations can do to stimulate and sustain the inclusion of fathers in the delivery of family and children's services. (Author abstract)
This report presents findings from the demonstration-phase implementation of the Parents' Fair Share program, and early impacts on fathers' earnings and child support payments. In exchange for current and future cooperation with the child support system, a partnership of local organizations offered fathers services designed to help them find better jobs, pay child support, and assume a more paternal role. (Author abstract)
Recent interest in the subject of fatherhood notwithstanding, the problems of fathers, and in particular young fathers, have generally been overlooked in matters of public policy. In fact, the quality of political attention given young fathers has, if anything, grown somewhat negative in recent years, a trend evident in federal welfare reform legislation, which tends to cast young men as irresponsible losers or even sexual predators while resolutely demanding that they pay up. While such a negative approach might be justified in a minority of cases, in general it neither encourages healthy…
Brief
The research on social fatherhood is complex, compelling, and vital to our understanding of family wellbeing. It is especially pertinent to the study of well-being in children. Initially, researchers used a simple explanatory model attempting to associate paternal presence/absence with isolated child outcomes. More recently, researchers and theorists have considered fathers' motivations, contexts,involvement, and enactment of the paternal role with greater complexity. (Author abstract)
This issue brief examines the provisions of the Personal Work Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act of 1996 and the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 that apply to fatherhood. The briefing focuses on the initiatives and programs that can be used by states to encourage fathers to be more involved in the lives of their children. The Personal Work Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act (PRA) included goals for increasing child support enforcement, overcoming barriers to employment, decreasing out-of-wedlock births, and developing visitation programs for…
The purpose of this volume is to share with federal statistical agencies, federal and state policy-makers and the broad family and child well-being research community the results of a multi-year process by the Forum to review and analyze the state of data collection and research on male fertility, family formation, and fathering. This review considered what data has been collected about male fertility, family formation, and fathering, the quality of that data, what has have learned from the analysis of the data, what theoretical and empirical work remains to be done, and how the federal…
