red dot icon
Journal Article Despite research that substantiates the importance of father involvement in children's lives, family-centered child welfare services continue to be oriented toward the child's mother. This newsletter from the National Child Welfare Resource Center for Family-Centered Practice explains how child welfare services can engage fathers in the lives of their children. The articles suggest strategies such as family conferencing, support services, and outreach to fathers in prison or on parole. The findings from research about the positive and negative aspects of father involvement are discussed.…
red dot icon
Journal Article This study examined the effects of an empowerment intervention, Men as Teachers, on African American Head Start fathers. Fathers were randomly assigned to the empowerment program or to a control group in which participants viewed a five-part videotape series on parenting. The results revealed a significant improvement in fathers' attitudes about their ability to teach their preschool-age children for the experimental group only. There was no significant improvement in these fathers' attitudes about racial oppression socialization practices. Resident fathers in the experimental group showed…
red dot icon
Journal Article The lead article for this special issue draws attention to the dangers facing fatherhood in the United States today. Several groups of fathers are identified whose parenting roles could be at-risk. They include fathers who are no longer in their children's lives, are functioning in underutilized ways, and/or are struggling with limited preparedness. At-risk fathers comprise several types of residential and nonresidential fathers identified in this article. Residential fathers could include lower income fathers without adequate employment, single custodial dads, and fathers with special needs…
red dot icon
Journal Article In 1998, the 122nd General Assembly of the State of Ohio created the Ohio Task Force on Family Law and Children (Task Force). The General Assembly had concluded that the parent-child relationship is of fundamental importance to the welfare of a child, and that the relationship between a child and each parent should be fostered unless inconsistent with the child's best interest. The Task Force was instructed to make recommendations on how to create a more civilized and constructive parenting process for children whose parents do not reside together. Qualitative and quantitative data regarding…
Federal policies are promoting father involvement in families to improve developmental, academic, and economic outcomes for children. This information packet provides an overview of issues related to fatherhood initiatives for providers and consumers of social services. It includes a fact sheet of statistics about effects of fatherlessness, a summary of policies and legislation, and lists of references and web resources. The innovative Georgia Fatherhood Program also is profiled.
red dot icon
Journal Article Children born out of wedlock often suffer due to infrequent and limited interaction with the noncustodial parent. To address this issue, programs have been developed at the federal and state level to improve the access of noncustodial parents (primarily fathers) to their natural children. This article describes an access and visitation program that facilitates the creation of agreements between noncustodial and custodial parents. Findings from a six month demonstration in two counties in metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia are reported. In total, more than 100 noncustodial parents participated in…
red dot icon
Journal Article Propositions from identity theory suggest that interactional and affective commitment to a role identity affects the psychological centrality of that role identity. In turn, the centrality of one's role identity translates into role performance. This conceptual model was tested with a sample of 186 fathers in first marriages with at least one child 18 years or younger. The results showed that fathers who perceive their wives as evaluating them positively as fathers were more likely to report higher levels of involvement in child-related activities and place greater importance on the father…
red dot icon
Journal Article The authors use an ecological framework and grounded theoretical analysis to explore the circumstances in which working-class and low-income custodial African American fathers gain custody of their children; their transition from part-time to full-time parents; and the role of support networks in enhancing or inhibiting these men's parenting. Twenty-four men from an impoverished Midwestern urban area participated in the study. The findings suggest that these men, and perhaps others sharing their demographic profiles, generally become parents by default and are often reluctant to take on a…
red dot icon
Journal Article This study documents the opinions of twenty low-income fathers about their participation in a Responsible Fatherhood program in a large urban area. The program offered life skills training, job readiness and placement assistance, mental health counseling and other services to help fathers become involved in their children's lives and to comply with child support orders. Formal services were provided for six months, with opportunities for follow-up maintenance groups. The fathers who participated in the study were at various levels in the program, from entry to ongoing support. Four focus…
red dot icon
Journal Article This study examined the association between fathers' alcoholism and other risk factors such as parental depression, family conflict, infant temperament, and parent-infant attachment. The quality of parent-infant interactions was hypothesized to be a proximal mediator of the associations among alcoholism and other risk factors and attachment. The participants were 223 families (104 nonalcoholic families and 119 alcoholic families) with 12-month-old infants recruited through birth records. Infants in families with two parents with alcohol problem had significantly higher rates of insecure…
