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The pamphlet presents strategies that can be used to prepare children for a visit with an incarcerated parent. Strategies include having the parent write a letter to the child before the visit and providing the child with specific information about the visit. Additional tips are provided for the caregiver on the day of the visit and during the visit. Caregivers are cautioned to not force a child to express his feelings about the visit.
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The conference summary report synthesizes key aspects of the Prisons to Home project including the state symposium discussions, conference plenary and break-out sessions, and the research papers developed for the conference. The report is not a complete record of the conference presentations, rather, it captures the common themes and salient tensions that emerged and their implications for children, families, and communities. Presented research and the subsequent discussions identified children, families, and former prisoners who have experienced incarceration as a group at high risk for…
Studies about the effects of divorce on children have found that children who are separated from their father are more likely than children in two-parent families to have problems in psychosocial development, behavior, school performance, employment, and future interpersonal relationships. Conversely, the research indicates that positive relationships with nonresidential fathers who are actively involved in the lives of their children promote positive adjustment. This chapter suggests that postdivorce child custody agreements should seek to enhance the involvement of the nonresidential parent…
Economic theory can be used to explain family behavior and trends in marriage, divorce, births, and child development. This chapter provides an economic perspective to explore questions about why some nonresident fathers withhold financial and emotional support from their children. The economic model includes variables such as the level of consumption by each parent and child, shared and private goods, the amount spent on children, parental cooperation, and differences in spending of fathers and mothers. The text summarizes evidence about trends in child support and visitation and the ability…
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Journal Article What are the key factors that influence the health and development of children? Researchers have tried to answer this question for many years by looking at the role of the child's mother, the school, and the neighborhood, among other factors. Until recently, the role of fathers in their children's lives has been mostly overlooked. If the contribution of fathers was studied, the focus was often on white, middle-class families. Few studies in the past have addressed the role of fathers in disadvantaged or at-risk families. When examining the antecedents and effects of child maltreatment, it is…
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Journal Article John O'Donnell conducted this study to increase knowledge about casework practice with biological fathers of children who are in the child welfare system. The study was based on data gathered from caseworkers in two private agencies' kinship foster care programs. As O'Donnell states, "Kinship foster care was considered a particularly opportune child welfare service in which to study practice for two reasons. First, the use of relatives as foster parents for maltreated children has increased significantly in the past decade. In some states, such as Illinois, kinship foster home placements…
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Journal Article To support better outcomes for families and children "My Baby's Father," uses a family systems approach and concrete skill development as a way to increase male involvement. The training we use in the program is based on the Enriched Structural Family Therapy (ESFT) model, which is an original family systems approach to strengthening families. ESFT is strengths-oriented, solution-focused, skills based and culturally sensitive. The model encourages a systemic perspective of families and helps child welfare workers to focus on solutions, not problems and pathology.
In this brief we examine the relationship between increased child support enforcement and frequency of visitation between children and their nonresident fathers. Children who live apart from their fathers are at a greater risk of living in poverty, having low academic achievement, and exhibiting behavioral problems. Frequent contact between children and their nonresident fathers can protect children from some of the negative consequences of parental separation. Several recent studies have shown that more frequent contact with nonresident fathers is linked to children's greater emotional…
