Brief
Research shows that children with engaged fathers are more likely to be emotionally secure, confident, and have better social connections as they grow. And today’s dads are eager and committed to being very present and highly involved with their children, and to do the best job possible supporting their development. How can policymakers ensure that children are able to reap the immense benefits of having an engaged father in their lives?
This report provides a broad overview of key findings from the United States Sentencing Commission’s study of recidivism of federal offenders. The Commission studied offenders who were either released from federal prison after serving a sentence of imprisonment or placed on a term of probation in 2005. Nearly half (49.3%) of such offenders were rearrested within eight years for either a new crime or for some other violation of the condition of their probation or release conditions. This report discusses the Commission’s recidivism research project and provides many additional findings from…
Where and when during childhood and adolescence do people acquire the foundations of financial capability? The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) researched the childhood origins of financial capability and well-being to identify those roots and to find promising practices and strategies to support their development. Our new report, “Building Blocks to Help Youth Achieve Financial Capability: A New Model and Recommendations,” illuminates critical attributes, abilities, and opportunities acquired during the years spanning preschool through young adulthood that support the development…
Report, Other
This publication introduces an assessment and planning tool to help nonprofits evaluate their parent engagement efforts and chart a path toward deeper partnerships with parents and caregivers. The tool spans just eight pages, with accompanying text outlining how to use it, how to assess its results and what real-world strategies and programs are already in play — and working — to boost parent engagement. (Author Abstract)
Our 2016 report on "The New Dad" reviewed survey responses from Millennial fathers and contrasted these with Millennial mothers as well as fathers who had participated in our 2011 survey. The report further explores the trend of involved fatherhood and the challenges experienced by today's dads as they strive to manage and be fully engaged in both their work and personal lives. (Author Abstract)
Brief
This brief summarizes findings on the impact of couples-based family strengthening services in four prison-based programs from the Multi-Site Family Study on Incarceration, Parenting and Partnering (MFS-IP) and discusses the implications for policy, programs, and future research. In one of the four grantee programs, the low-dosage healthy relationship retreat had sustained positive effects on multiple partnership and parenting relationship outcomes for a low-income, justice-involved population. This evaluation attempted to isolate the impacts of relatively low-dosage couples programming.…
Brief
This brief uses a sample of over 1,000 reentering men in five states to examine reentry success. The analysis uses a common measure of recidivism as well as measures of success in other areas, including employment, drug use, and two dimensions of family relationship quality that are very rarely examined in reentry studies: financial support for children and intimate/coparenting relationship quality. The results suggest that most men were successful in at least four of the measured areas and that family contact during incarceration was positively associated with reentry success. Further,…
Numerous parents participate in parenting programmes to promote child development, but few programmes consider relationships within family systems. While both parents’ attendance can improve outcomes, both are rarely able to attend, with mothers typically being the participant. The study aims to understand whether changes to parenting practices can occur from one parent’s attendance and, if so, what factors promote the non-attending parent’s modified parenting practices. A mixed-method evaluation was conducted: semi-structured interviews, surveys and focus groups. In this study, both parents…
This chapter describes the Family Life Project, a large-scale longitudinal study that chronicles the lives of African American and non-African American children and their families living in two poor rural areas of the US: Appalachia and the Black South. The breadth of the Family Life Project data allows us to expand the previous literature on rural poverty and to highlight the notion that the effects of poverty are not limited to low levels of income, but are rather fused with several “correlated constraints” that co-occur with poverty: low maternal education, low job prestige, non-standard…
In this chapter, I argue that scholars, social service providers, policy makers, and others who critically engage the topic of African American fatherhood, must attend to two concepts that highlight under-treated dimensions of that role: vulnerability and safe space. Vulnerability, a product of anxiety, uncertainty, and unfamiliarity, is a condition affecting many socio-economically disadvantaged African American fathers. These men also function without access to safe space, or public and/or institutionalized space that would allow them the opportunity to better realize, express, and address…
