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After a number of years working with a caseload of 20 families in a rural community, I began to notice a trend: the lack of fathers present in the homes during my work. I began to question what our district could do to encourage the involvement of more fathers. After pondering this question, all the while doing little to nothing about the issue, I received an e-mail from our Parents as Teachers state leader. The e-mail was sent to all Illinois programs stating that the national center was looking to partner with a local program for a fatherhood initiative project. I jumped on the chance to…
Home visits provide a unique opportunity to assess parents’ child-rearing skills and to provide targeted services to assist responsible adults in growing healthy families. If you are a home visitor, you are probably already aware of some of the barriers that you must confront when attempting to achieve these goals. Often one of those barriers is the reluctance of fathers and men in families to recognize the importance of their participation in home visits. This tends to be true across a wide range of cultures, income levels, and educational backgrounds. In order to engage fathers and men…
During the last five years we have had the privilege of partnering with selected Parents as Teachers (PAT) sites through the Office of Family Assistance Promoting Responsible Fatherhood Grant to enhance father involvement. We learned many lessons as partner sites provided group meetings in urban, rural, and military communities that spanned a range of demographics. Our PAT sites experienced a wide array of successes and challenges, sometimes unique to their community. These experiences provide the foundation for this summary of lessons learned.
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
New York launched a pilot employment program to help parents behind in their child support in four communities between 2006 and 2009. The program was part of the state's Strengthening Families Through Stronger Fathers Initiative. Our evaluation found that the program's combination of employment assistance, case management, and other support services substantially increased the earnings and child support payments of disadvantaged parents who were not meeting their child support obligations.
This fact sheet profiles the Parents as Teachers program, an evidence-based home visiting approach that builds strong families and promotes positive parent-child interaction so children are healthy, safe, and ready to learn. Findings from a 2004 study on the benefits and costs of prevention and early intervention programs are shared and indicate Parents as Teachers had the largest benefit per dollar of cost ($1.23) of all reviewed pre-kindergarten education programs for children up to age 3. Goals of the Parent as Teachers program are explained and include: enhance parent knowledge of child…
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This report discusses conclusions from a two-day meeting of representatives of local, State, and national agencies that focused on the potential benefits and challenges of interagency collaboration between relationship education and pregnancy prevention practitioners. It summarizes key themes from the meeting and strategic actions related to relationship education and teen pregnancy prevention that were highlighted in the meeting. The recommended actions include: launch pilot projects and projects to test promising practices and assess the effectiveness of blended strategies; include youth…
Part of a series of fact sheets that discuss how and why the child support program provides innovative services to families across six interrelated areas to assure that parents have the tools and resources they need to support their children and be positively involved in raising them, this fact sheet focuses on family-centered innovations to improve child support outcomes. The need for family-centered child support services is explained, child support program accomplishments are shared, and the evolving child support program policy agenda is described. The collaboration of the child support…
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These resources are a snapshot of web-based materials available as of May, 2011; including field-shaping research and information sites, practical tools, and programmatic guidance for the important work of responsible fatherhood. (Author abstract)
Fatherhood engagement involves a flexible approach where the engagement varies depending upon the father's risk levels and strengths. This list will help to assess risk/dangerousness and make decisions about how to engage a man who has a history of domestic violence. (Author abstract modified)
