How to Help Young Dads Become Loving and Responsible Parents.If you work with young people and/or their children, ROAD to Fatherhood will help you develop comprehensive services for young fathers. Learn of the many needs of young fathers through their real stories together with strategies for helping them meet their individual and unique challenges. PLUS how to:* Plan before you start your program* Choose qualified and empathetic staff* Recruit young fathers* Evaluate curriculum* Promote your services* Celebrate each father's love for his childAre you already teaching teen moms? ROAD to…
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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…
A review of data from the United States Census and other sources reveals that the trend in father absence is stabilizing. Currently, approximately one-third of all children in the United States do not live with their biological father and 27 percent of children live in single-parent homes. Thirty-three percent of births in the year 2000 were to unwed parents. Almost half of the children who do not live with their father have not seen their father in at least one year. Fatherlessness is related to child poverty, drug use, educational problems, and health and behavioral problems. Children…
Although some of the methods used to examine aspects of motherhood can be applied to research about fatherhood, the maternal construct will not include specific characteristics that distinguish fathers and mothers. This chapter reviews methodological issues in the study of fathers and fatherhood. It highlights three basic questions that should be answered in the design of research about fathers: the definition of father, the perspectives that should be considered, and the methods that should be applied. The text explains that the absence of one unifying theory of fatherhood requires the use…
This report summarizes the findings of a study of father involvement in Early Head Start Programs, conducted as part of the national Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project. Officials from 261 Early Head Start programs completed an Internet-based survey about the characteristics of fathers, strategies for involving fathers, goals for father involvement, level of father involvement, characteristics of staff, and barriers to involving fathers. Respondents reported that an average of 44.6 percent of children served have a resident father and 24.9 percent have an involved nonresident…
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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…
This chapter examines the link between bargaining power and parental involvement in married, cohabiting, and noncohabiting parents. The discussion focuses on three elements of parental involvement that are significant for child development: money, time, and emotional care. Among these dimensions, one can be substituted for another but all three are supportive of each other. For example, a high level of father involvement is associated with greater levels of financial support, especially among noncustodial parents. Parents often bargain or negotiate with each other to increase involvement in…
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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…
