Fatherhood Summit Session
Family services programs are also in the business of serving fathers. How can they become more father friendly? This session drew on the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse’s (NRFC) Responsible Fatherhood Toolkit: Resources from the Field and the shared experiences of participants. The workshop explored the most effective ways to recruit and engage fathers to improve outcomes for families and children.
Presenters focused on hiring, training, and supporting staff, conducting successful outreach and recruitment, and delivering effective services. The presenters also shared tips…
Fatherhood Summit Session
“Think big, act practically, and let your light shine” are key tenets of the Citizen Father Project, a program promoting leadership among fathers in the Minneapolis area. Developed through a partnership between a university and a fatherhood program, the Citizen Father Project forges relationships between fathers and professionals to build healthy families and communities. The project’s goal is to create community social change by addressing the problem of fathers not being positively involved in the lives of their children. Leaders draw upon parental resilience and collaborative social…
Fatherhood Summit Session
From policy to practice, funding, and organizational founding, women play a pivotal role in the promotion of responsible fatherhood. John C. Maxwell defines a leader as “one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” This session features three women—dynamic fatherhood program leaders—who know, go, and show the way to effective father engagement, strong program implementation, and continuous quality improvement.
Good leaders possess qualities that are unrelated to gender: honesty and integrity, compassion and commitment, inspiration and empathy, competence and confidence…
Fatherhood Summit Session
Addressing fathers’ employment needs is crucial in most fatherhood programs, but many dads face special challenges in finding work. This session began with a brief overview of how employment has been addressed in fatherhood programs through key demonstration projects such as Parents’ Fair Share. Next, the presenters described effective methods for providing employment services to a range of high-need fathers including noncustodial or nonresidential fathers, and fathers with criminal records, minimal education, or child support arrears. The presenters addressed common road blocks to…
Fatherhood Summit Session
Organizations across the country are considering—or actively offering—father-focused services. Whether new to the field or seasoned practitioners, all can benefit from developing, refining, and implementing strategies designed to engage fathers. This session will take participants on an exploratory journey of personal and organizational capacity to assess their readiness to set a place at the fatherhood table. Preparation involves careful consideration of whether a program’s policy, practice, and mission align with those of public and private funding organizations. Preparation also…
Brief
Since the 1970s, Americans’ household incomes have become more volatile, fluctuating year-to-year and week-to-week. Increased income volatility is particularly prominent among low-income families, many of whom are served by the U.S. system of means-tested income support programs. These programs provide income, goods, and services to families who prove that their income (and sometimes assets) are low enough to qualify for a particular program and meet other program requirements. At initial application, during benefit receipt, and at recertification periods, each income support program has…
Brief
The Learn, Innovate, Improve (LI2) process is a systematic, evidence-informed approach to program improvement. LI2 involves a series of analytic and replicable activities, supported by collaboration between practitioners and applied researchers, to help human services programs design, implement, and iteratively test programmatic changes. As a continuous improvement process, LI2 is intended to build practitioners’ capacity for better using and producing high-quality evidence; ultimately, this process can be institutionalized within the program environment.Human services programs (such as…
Brief
Low-skilled men, especially minorities, typically work at low levels and provide little support for their children. Conservatives blame this on government willingness to support families, which frees the fathers from responsibility, while liberals say that men are denied work by racial bias or the economy--either a lack of jobs or low wages, which depress the incentive to work. The evidence for all these theories is weak. Thus, changing program benefits or incentives is unlikely to solve the men's work problem. More promising is the idea of linking assistance with administrative requirements…
Brief
This issue brief highlights the benefits of increasing the use of community-based alternatives for youth rather than incarceration in Illinois. It explains the use of incarceration has consequences that leave youth more likely to commit another crime and less likely to succeed in school, find employment, and become financially secure in the long run. It notes community-based approaches that promote rehabilitation are less expensive and that evidence-based therapies delivered in the community can reduce recidivism rates by more than 15% while helping youth remain in their community. Steps for…
Brief
This mixed-method evaluation examined five community-based initiatives in Washington State intended to prevent child maltreatment and exposure to toxic stress, mitigate their effects, and improve child and youth development outcomes. The study had two phases. During the first phase (2013–2014), the research team assessed operational contexts, strategies used to increase community capacity to prevent ACEs, and impact at the county level. In the second phase (2015–2016), the researchers examined the extent to which sites developed capacity to achieve their goals, and the relationship of select…
