2022-2027
Fatherhood programs are designed to support fathers’ connections with their children, improve fathers’ relationships with their partners or co-parents, and strengthen fathers’ economic wellbeing. These programs usually offer workshops and case management services for dads on a range of topics, including parenting strategies to strengthen child-father relationships, skills to improve co-parenting relationships, strategies for obtaining steady employment, and support in navigating other life or family challenges they might experience. Acknowledging the important roles that fathers play in the wellbeing of their children, families, and communities, the federal government invests tens of millions into fatherhood programs every year. However, studies to date demonstrate wide variability in effectiveness.
The Fatherhood TIES team will accomplish the project’s goals through several key activities:
- Obtain input on each phase of the work through a robust active engagement approach that includes an advisory committee made up of fathers, fatherhood program staff, subject matter experts, and others
- Define and prioritize core components to test using a multi-layered approach that will include a landscape review, descriptive quantitative analysis, meta-analysis, and qualitative approaches
- Collaborate with the following five fatherhood programs to implement and test the selected core components
- Fathers Incorporated (of Dunwoody, GA) and Passages Connecting Fathers and Families (of Cleveland, OH): concierge-style supports for navigating systems and processes that affect fathers’ access to their children, e.g. the child welfare system, child support system, and family court proceedings.
- Housing Opportunities Commission’s Fatherhood Initiative program (of Gaithersburg, MD) and Private Industry Council’s Dads Matter program (of Easton, PA): financial support to fathers of $500 per month for three months and financial coaching tailored to the needs of the individual.
- Montefiore Medical Center’s HERO Dads program (of Bronx, NY): one-on-one parenting coaching to address issues in fathers’ relationships with their children and romantic partners.
- Share findings and lessons by publishing a variety of products such as reports, briefs, and how-to guides that highlight the perspectives of fathers and staff, and help policymakers, researchers, and program operators apply lessons from the project
- Conduct an implementation study that will describe who participated in fatherhood program services, how services operated, what fathers thought about the services, and the challenges staff members faced implementing them
In identifying which of these “core components” are most effective and how they are successfully integrated with services, the project aims to improve outcomes for children, families, and communities as well as individual dads.
The Fatherhood TIES project is being conducted by MDRC, Abt Associates, MEF Associates, and Mathematica.
Points of contact: Rebecca Hjelm and Katie Pahigiannis
Information collections related to this project have been reviewed and approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under OMB #0970-0622. Related materials are available at Testing Identified Elements for Success in Fatherhood Programs page on RegInfo.gov.
The most currently approved documents are accessible by clicking on the ICR Ref. No. with the most recent conclusion date. To access the information collections (E.g. interviews, surveys, protocols), click on View Information Collection (IC) List. Click on View Supporting Statement and Other Documents to access other supplementary documents.