Brief
What makes for a good teen fatherhood program? The timing of fatherhood is a powerful organizer of the paternal role. Early entry into fatherhood is a non-normative event and often accelerates role transitions. Even before they become fathers, teen fathers are a particularly vulnerable group of males whose family backgrounds and life-stressors tend to differ from older men and men who do not become fathers during adolescence. For many years, teen fathers were either overlooked or blamed for their role in teen pregnancy. However, interest in designing programs to reduce teen pregnancy, and…
Brief
In fiscal year 2018, noncustodial parents were obligated to pay nearly $33.6 billion in current child support on behalf of the 15 million children served by the Title IV-D child support program. One-third of that, or $11 billion, was not collected. Unemployment is the leading reason for non-payment of child support by noncustodial parents. This brief will explore the opportunities at the state and federal levels to provide employment services to noncustodial parents and increase child support payments in the process.
Brief
Men who become fathers during their teens or early twenties face many important decisions. Practitioners can empower these young fathers to make the best decisions for themselves and their families by providing them with accurate research-based knowledge. This NRFC brief for fatherhood practitioners considers some of the topics that young fathers may need to think about and offers tips on how practitioners might help them make informed decisions about these topics.
Unpublished Paper
Drawing on an extended longitudinal study of the lived experiences and support needs of young fathers, this working paper follows the fortunes of 31 young men through the process of becoming a parent. The paper begins with some reflections on the nature of existing evidence on young fathers. In 2010, at the outset of our study, we discovered a paradox in researching this topic. On the one hand, young fathers had been neglected in social scientific research and marginalized in policy discourses and in professional practice (see Neale 2016, Neale and Davies 2015 and for parallel developments in…
Brief
In this briefing paper we provide an overview of the support needs and experiences of the young men in our study (31 young men in our longitudinal sample and four others recruited as clients of particular services, aged between 14 and 24 at the point of entry into parenthood). Drawing on both client and practitioner accounts, we consider how young fathers are perceived and treated in their various encounters with professional agencies. In seeking to contribute new insights on the effectiveness of such support,we address a key question posed by Hadley (2014): Are young fathers hard to reach?…
Brief
In this introductory paper, we chart the transitions into parenthood of the 31 young men recruited for our longitudinal study. We explore whether their entry into parenthood was planned; what, if any, choices the young men were able to exercise; and to what extent they were able to adjust to their new role and develop a long term commitment to their child. (Author abstract modified)
This report shares the findings from an impact and implementation study of New Heights, a DC Public Schools program that provides a multi-faceted approach for supporting parenting students’ educational attainment. This report demonstrates how the program made a significant impact on academic outcomes, such as school engagement and credit accumulation, and a marginal impact on a more distal outcome of graduation. The report provides an in-depth description of the program model, and presents student and staff perceptions of its success. (Author abstract)
Brief
To better understand the challenges federal grantees face in sustaining their programs, and to learn from the successful efforts of former grantees, the Office of Adolescent Health (OAH) launched a sustainability study. OAH’s sustainability study examines whether—and in what form—programs first funded in 2010 to support expectant and parenting youth and families have continued operating beyond the federal grant, and the types of strategies and resources they found useful in attempting to sustain their programs. This brief presents the first set of findings from the sustainability study. It…
Brief
The Administration for Children and Families funded Mathematica Policy Research to conduct a rigorous evaluation of the Wise Guys program in and near Davenport, Iowa, in collaboration with the Iowa Department of Public Health. This programming was delivered by a community-based organization in Davenport-area middle schools and funded through the state’s Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) grant. The Wise Guys curriculum aims to promote male responsibility and discourage early entry into fatherhood. By offering programming in male-only groups, Wise Guys aims to create an…
Community groups can be settings which enable people to come together, meet with peers and engage in positive activities and support. Little is known about community groups for young men who are fathers and young men can often feel marginalized in and from other services and family support settings. This report therefore details findings from a qualitative research project into two different projects which are providing groups for young men who are fathers. The research is based on interviews with stakeholders and participants within the two projects and this report looks at key themes and…
