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Committed fathers love spending time with their children, but with today's pressures of work and other priorities, it can be challenging to find ways to make quality and quantity time with the kids. Wayne Parker discusses some important resources for fathers to help make more time, and better time, with the family.
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This National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse (NRFC) resource provides information on paternity establishment for practitioners who work with unmarried fathers. Laws and procedures vary from state to state; therefore, we provide information that is generally true across states, but recommend practitioners are prepared to discuss state-specific information with their participants. For help finding more information, you or the fathers you work with can call the NRFC Helpline at 1-877-4DAD-411. You can also go to our online state profiles, which include information about specific laws on…
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Whole family approaches, also known as two-generation or multigeneration approaches, attend to the needs of parents or caregivers and their children simultaneously. The concept has mostly been applied to services for mothers and their children and has yet to be tested by responsible fatherhood programs. Although the ultimate goal of most fatherhood programs is to enhance child well-being, only a few programs focus directly on the needs of children. Whole family approaches that link services for fathers with services for their children and other family members could increase program impacts…
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Community partnerships can help fatherhood programs in many ways. They can increase the range of available services, enhance recruitment and retention efforts, and help fathers gain access to employment and training opportunities. Forming an effective partnership with the local child support agency can be particularly helpful for programs working with noncustodial fathers who are struggling to maintain regular child support payments. This case study describes the development of such a partnership in a rural area of central California (Merced County) and provides an overview of lessons…
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An NRFC team visited the TYRO Champion Dads program of Anthem Strong Families (ASF) in Dallas, Texas on June 28 and 29, 2017 and had the opportunity to talk with program staff, participants, graduates, and community partners. This NRFC Spotlight highlights aspects of the organization’s fatherhood program that may be of interest to other fatherhood practitioners.
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An NRFC team visited the South Carolina Center for Fathers and Families and three of their program centers on May 23, 24, and 25, 2017. This NRFC Spotlight highlights aspects of the organization and its programs that may be of interest to other fatherhood practitioners.
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The National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse (NRFC) has developed this research brief to help fatherhood practitioners increase their awareness and understanding of the experiences of fathers of children with special needs. The brief explains several of the more common special needs, describes challenges that fathers of children with special needs may face, and provides tips to help fatherhood programs better support these fathers. Because most research on the experience of parents of children with special needs has focused on mothers, we draw from both published research and interviews…
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Responsible Fatherhood programs often have a strong focus on workforce development activities. The federal Office of Family Assistance requires their Responsible Fatherhood grantees to provide economic stability activities, such as job training, employment services, and career-advancing education, and other fatherhood programs typically recognize the importance of helping fathers improve their ability to provide financially for themselves and their children. Workforce development activities generally include training for specific job skills (such as welding, automotive mechanics, or…
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Men who become fathers during their teens or early twenties face many important decisions. Practitioners can empower these young fathers to make the best decisions for themselves and their families by providing them with accurate research-based knowledge. This NRFC brief for fatherhood practitioners considers some of the topics that young fathers may need to think about and offers tips on how practitioners might help them make informed decisions about these topics.
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The social safety net is widely recognized as having been quite successful in providing major financial support to low-income families during the Great Recession, one of the most severe economic downturns in modern U.S. history. Safety net expenditures grew in aggregate and were widely distributed to all types of needy families. Before the recession, however, while aggregate transfers to the low-income population also exhibited steady growth, the growth was not equally shared across different types of families. Transfers grew much more for the elderly and disabled relative to the nonelderly…
