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Mailman School
of Public Health
Columbia University
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Disconnected dads: Strategies for promoting responsible fatherhood Theodora Ooms, Elena Cohen and John Hutchins This report describes the first of two meetings on fatherhood issues held by Family Impact Seminar. The participants suggest that state and federal programs follow the lead of private, nonprofit projects and social service agencies in involving fathers. It notes that 24 percent of U.S. children now live in families without fathers present. Only one out of six children in these families have paternal visits at least once a week, and many live in communities where more than half of the families with children have no adult male present. The seminar participants agreed that community goals should include preventing the fathering of children out-of-wedlock; establishing legal paternity if males do father such children; enforcing absent fathers' payment of child support; and fostering close bonds between absent fathers and their children. The report describes creative ways to meet these goals. It summarizes the beginnings and evolution of the "fatherhood movement", and includes a list of organizational resources and references, paying special attention to programs targeted to fathers in "fragile" families (those with out-of-wedlock births and low-skilled parents who neither establish paternity nor marry), and to programs involving fathers in activities usually aimed at mothers and children (such as child welfare, mental health, substance abuse, and juvenile justice system services, or traditional maternal and child health (MCH) programs). Research documents that fathers do care, their presence makes a difference in their children's well-being, parenting behavior strongly reflects intergenerational beliefs and practices, and unemployment interferes with family formation and paternal involvement. Present public programs, however, create barriers to male participation in poor families. The authors call for additional supports to build parenting skills and committed fathers, especially through Head Start and other early childhood programs, MCH programs, public schools, family support and parent education activities, and programs for families of special needs children. Federal and state programs can play a role by funding innovative programs to reach fathers, removing financial and administrative obstacles to paternal involvement, establishing financial incentives, setting positive legal and administrative guidelines to promote responsible behavior by fathers, mandating more research and data collection on fathers' program participation, and enhancing program staff training and technical assistance to focus on fathers.
Family Impact Seminar
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Disclaimer Free To Grow is a national program supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation with direction and technical assistance provided by the Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University. |