This workbook was provided to participants in an Early Head Start/Child Welfare orientation training program held in June 2003, in Washington D.C. The first part of workbook includes information about the child welfare system, including the Children’s Bureau and child welfare services. The second part of the workbook includes child welfare resources, including a listing of federal funding resources for technical assistance, prevention activities, and online resources. The following sections review the major components of the Head Start program and the Early Head Start program. And provide…
This report provides a review of the literature on fatherhood and factors that impact father involvement. It begins by examining the literature on father care activities and describing some of the variations in care that are linked to family and child characteristics. This research also includes studies centering on factors that increase or decrease the likelihood of fathers being involved in the care of their children. The review then focuses on fathers' status in families with attention given to four predominate father-child arrangements: married or cohabiting fathers in the same household…
This working paper explores the role of fathers and father-child relationships in the psychosocial development of adolescents by examining outcomes data from National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) files on children and mothers. The survey uses a number of measures to evaluate child development and well being; other characteristics of children and mothers; information about family structure and household makeup; family income, home environment, and other sociodemographic factors; as well as children's perceptions of their mother, father, and or/step father. The initial survey was…
Since 1984 policy makers have increasingly turned their attention to reforming the childsupport system. Despite this attention, the child support system has often failed to increase theeconomic security of single-parent families. This article sythesizes findings from recent qualitative studies to explain why the child support system "breaks down" for so many low-income families. This research suggests that parents often prefer informal arrangements of support and do not comply with child support regulations they perceive to be unfair, counterproductive, or punitive. It also suggests that…
The changing ideals of fatherhood have important implications for the types of activities that comprise father involvement, the empirical measurement of father involvement, and the instruments with which we measure involvement. Our first goal in this paper is to discuss briefly different tools and approaches to measuring father involvement, generally. Second, we talk about the specific measurement tools and methods used in the Father Studies of the Early Head Start (EHS) Evaluation Project. Third, we highlight lessons from the field that have emerged as father involvement is measured in the…
Most low-income dads are connected with their children at birth. Contrary to what some may believe, they do want to provide support for their children, although they do not know how to step into the role of financial and emotional provider. Often, these fathers share many of the same characteristics as welfare recipients--poor work history, low levels of literacy, sporadic employment or unemployment. Additionally, many low-income dads have grown up without their own fathers, so they lack true examples of what it means to be a father. There is growing recognition that low-income fathers are in…
This guide suggests some of the many flexible ways States may expend their Federal TANF and State MOE funds to further the purposes of the TANF program. This guide is organized into seven sections: (1) Introduction provides some background information, explaining what progress has been made on welfare reform, what the funding situation is, the purposes of TANF, and the purpose of this guide; (2) Considerations in Deciding Whether A Use of Funds is Appropriate presents a list of factors which a State would consider in deciding what benefits and services to fund with Federal or State dollars…
This project largely stems from conversations that began in 1996 and 1997 involving ObieClayton of the Morehouse Research Institute, Ron Mincy of the Ford Foundation, David Blankenhorn of the Institute for American Values, and others.From these discussions, three questions emerged. First, what are the best ways to supportthe growing fatherhood movement in the African American community - a movement thatis relatively ignored by the national media, but which is transforming the lives of many young, poorly educated fathers? Second, is it time for the nation's prominent African American scholars…
A large body of research documents the earnings advantage that married men enjoy over never-married men, the "marriage premium." Marital status is now a control variable in most earnings models, despite disagreements in the literature over whether the source of marital-status effects lies in productivity, selection, discrimination or other factors (Cornwell & Rupert 1997). Some analysts recently have included nonmarital cohabitation in earnings models, generally finding a somewhat smaller but still significant premium to cohabitation (Daniel 1992; Loh 1996). Almost all of this research…
Too few poor children who live apart from their fathers can count on their financial support. In 1996, only 30 percent of poor children who lived apart from their dads received child support. That year, welfare reform addressed this hard fact, stepping up efforts to collect child support. But increased child support alone will not be enough; further support, economic incentives, and revised child support policies are needed to enable low-income noncustodial fathers to take financial responsibility for their children.
