Supporting Non-Residential Fathers: Shedding Biases And Enhancing Effective Parenting Partnerships.

There are many predictors of successful fatherhood involvement. One of the key predictors that I found in my work with families was the father’s relationship with the children’s mother as well as whether the father was a resident or non-resident of the home. Specifically looking at predictors of father involvement, fathers who have a better relationship with the children’s mother tend to have more access to their children (Cabrera, Tamis-LeMonda, Bradley, Hofferth, & Lamb, 2000; Coley & Hernandez, 2006). During my work, I have noticed that human service agencies are more tailored to mothers. These services are tailored to mothers because historically mothers have been the primary caretakers of the children. It may facilitate more father involvement for agencies working with families to be welcoming and open to fathers whether they reside in the home or not. In fact, as professionals in the human services community, we have a responsibility to take a family systems approach when working with our clients to help better the family