This chapter reports on in-depth interviews with 41 current and recent TANF recipients that discussed the various contributions that fathers make to their children, their strengths and limitations as fathers, and the benefits and challenges of their varying levels of participation in family life. It then explores whether mothers’ voices can inform policy options. 1 table and numerous references.
Drawing on data from 44 African American low-income fathers and interviews with three African American fathers conducted in the wake of Wisconsin’s effort to reduce the welfare rolls, this chapter examines how some men push to meet the basic financial and even emotional needs of their children. Findings indicate child support enforcement was a source of frustration and pain. 26 references.
Webinar
August is Child Support Awareness Month. State and local child support offices are scheduling special events to focus on the importance of providing child support for children and highlight services available to help both custodial and noncustodial parents provide for their children on a regular basis. As we heard in our March 2013 and April 2015 NRFC webinars, child support programs are evolving at the national and state levels and moving away from “welfare cost recovery” models to “family centered practices” that emphasize accurate child support orders based on actual income, family…
Webinar
This Webinar discusses funding and collaboration opportunities with the Office of Child Support Enforcement, primarily through the utilization of Access & Visitation grants. (Author abstract)
One of the most challenging goals for welfare reformers has been improving the collection of child support payments from noncustodial parents, usually fathers. Often vilified as "deadbeats" who have dropped out of their children's lives, these fathers have been the target of largely punitive enforcement policies that give little consideration to the complex circumstances of these men's lives. Fathers' Fair Share presents an alternative to these measures with an in-depth study of the Parents' Fair Share program. A multi-state intervention run by the Manpower Demonstration Research…
All across America, angry fathers are demanding rights. These men claim that since the breakdown of their own families, they have been deprived of access to their children. Joining together to form fathers' rights groups, the mostly white, middle-class men meet in small venues to speak their minds about the state of the American family and, more specifically, to talk about the problems they personally face, for which they blame current child support and child custody policies. Dissatisfied with these systems, fathers' rights groups advocate on behalf of legal reforms that will lower their…
Designed to assist advocates for nonresident fathers in child welfare cases, this checklist provides legal strategies for addressing child support obligations. Strategies for advocates are explained and include: request that the court or agency not refer the child to child support enforcement services when reunification may be a goal, argue that agency case plans cannot be derailed by imposing child support recovery mechanisms, combat any attempts by the State to terminate a father's rights based on his failure to pay child support, and identify other legal strategies to oppose collecting…
Webinar
This NRFC webinar was a follow-up to a March 2013 webinar that began a conversation about ways in which fatherhood practitioners can partner with local child support offices to help non-custodial fathers and their families. This April 2015 webinar continued the conversation with two fatherhood programs that have successfully established effective partnerships with their local child support office.
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Webinar
This webinar provided ideas and resources to help responsible fatherhood practitioners understand and meet the needs of non-custodial fathers and their families. It featured an overview of federal, state and local policies, partnerships and initiatives; explained how fatherhood practitioners can partner with local child support offices; and generally explored strategies to help non-custodial fathers and their families. (Author abstract)
About one-third of births in the United States occur to unmarried parents. Evidence suggests that children who grow up in families headed by single parents have worse socioeconomic outcomes than those raised by married parents. "Fatherlessness" has become a byword in public debate and policymaking, yet fundamental questions about unmarried parents and their ideas of paternal responsibility remain unanswered.
In My Baby's Father, Maureen R. Waller draws on interviews with unmarried parents whose children receive welfare to address several basic, vital questions: How do low-income…
