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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…
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Journal Article This journal issue focuses on fatherhood and addressing the needs of fathers in social work practice. It begins by discussing the dangers facing fatherhood in the United States, and identifying fathers whose parenting roles could be at-risk. The need for a special approach to reach fathers is emphasized, and a holistic approach is described that that builds on fathers' strengths, is culturally sensitive, considers many system levels of intervention, and promotes a broad base of support for fatherhood. Social movements supporting fatherhood are summarized, and pertinent fatherhood literature…
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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…
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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.…
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Journal Article This article describes the evolving experiences of one program director responding to the call to establish a "fatherhood initiative" in Davidson County, North Carolina. The fatherhood initiative described herein is one of the numerous initiatives currently being implemented across the country to assist fathers and families. The author assumes a personal narrative writing style to related those frustrations and joys, challenges and breakthroughs, and successes and failures that are likely to occur in other such enterprises. (Author abstract).
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Journal Article Although a number of socioeconomic forces have converged across cultures to make fathering one of the more prominent social issues of the new millennium, the status of substance-abusing men as fathers is rarely acknowledged in the conceptualization of public policy, service delivery or research focusing on the adverse consequences of drug and alcohol abuse. In this commentary, the authors call for the substance abuse research community to expand understanding of fathering occurring across cultures in the context of chronic substance abuse. Building upon research being undertaken with other…
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Journal Article On almost every indicator of child wellbeing,children today fare worse than their counterparts did just a generation ago. The reason proposed by some is the dramatic rise, over the last thirty years, in the number of children living in fatherless households.In 1960, less than 8 million children were living in families where the father was absent. Today, it's 24 million. Where are the fathers? Divorce,single unwed motherhood, child support and welfare policies, and incarceration are the prime suspects in their disappearance. Couple this with the pervasiveattitude, from school systems and human…
