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Father Involvement Interventions

Scientific Ratings in this Topic
  • 1 Well-Supported by Research Evidence
  • 2 Supported by Research Evidence
  • 3 Promising Research Evidence
  • 4 Evidence Fails to Demonstrate Effect
  • 5 Concerning Practice
  • NR Not able to be Rated

Topic Areas

Topic Areas

Definition

Father Involvement Interventions are defined by the CEBC as programs that aim to increase fathers' active and positive engagement in their children's lives. Father-focused programs promote involvement, provide support and education, teach fathers new parenting skills, and strengthen families. While all such programs directly or indirectly seek to prevent child abuse or neglect, some programs specifically aim to treat abuse. Studies have shown that when fathers have positive relationships with their children, it can have positive effects on their children's behavior, social skills, cognitive development, and academic achievement. Children with involved fathers tend to do better in school, have better grades, and are less likely to be expelled and/or repeat grades. In addition, higher levels of father involvement are associated with lower levels of child neglect, and children who live in fatherless households often face higher risks of physical abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect than children who live in households with a father present.

  • Target population: Fathers and their children
  • Services/types that fit: Prevention or intervention services that involve direct interaction with fathers in individual or group formats and delivered in person, via internet, or through recorded media (e.g. videos)
  • Delivered by: Trained paraprofessionals, educators, or mental health professionals
  • In order to be included: Program must specifically target increasing father involvement as a goal
  • In order to be rated: There must be research evidence (as specified by Scientific Rating Scale) that examines changes in outcomes related to father involvement, such as increased positive contacts between father and child(ren), improved attitude towards parental responsibilities, and improved relationships between fathers and children

Definition

Father Involvement Interventions are defined by the CEBC as programs that aim to increase fathers' active and positive engagement in their children's lives. Father-focused programs promote involvement, provide support and education, teach fathers new parenting skills, and strengthen families. While all such programs directly or indirectly seek to prevent child abuse or neglect, some programs specifically aim to treat abuse. Studies have shown that when fathers have positive relationships with their children, it can have positive effects on their children's behavior, social skills, cognitive development, and academic achievement. Children with involved fathers tend to do better in school, have better grades, and are less likely to be expelled and/or repeat grades. In addition, higher levels of father involvement are associated with lower levels of child neglect, and children who live in fatherless households often face higher risks of physical abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect than children who live in households with a father present.

  • Target population: Fathers and their children
  • Services/types that fit: Prevention or intervention services that involve direct interaction with fathers in individual or group formats and delivered in person, via internet, or through recorded media (e.g. videos)
  • Delivered by: Trained paraprofessionals, educators, or mental health professionals
  • In order to be included: Program must specifically target increasing father involvement as a goal
  • In order to be rated: There must be research evidence (as specified by Scientific Rating Scale) that examines changes in outcomes related to father involvement, such as increased positive contacts between father and child(ren), improved attitude towards parental responsibilities, and improved relationships between fathers and children

Why was this topic chosen by the Advisory Committee?

The Father Involvement Interventions topic area is relevant to child welfare because to truly create a system that supports the best interests of children in out-of-home care, states and counties need to prioritize strategies that create equal access for fathers to be meaningfully involved in the lives of their children, and thus maximize the likelihood that the goals of safety, permanency and well-being are reached. Historically, mothers have been the primary focus of attention in the child welfare system. This has been mostly due to the fact that a large number of primary caretakers that come to the attention of child welfare are mothers and are seen as the identified client and the target of case plans. Thus, permanency planning has often been limited to targeting mothers and the maternal side of the families. In this mother-centric environment, the child welfare system has been increasingly recognizing the potential of missed opportunities for effective case and permanency planning when they are not actively involving the father and his side of the family. Several reports have revealed the lack of meaningful father engagement by child welfare workers. In response to this, the Children's Bureau, through its Child and Family Services Review (CFSR), now includes an assessment of the degree of father involvement as part of their review process of state child welfare systems. As other studies reveal, when fathers become positively involved, the likelihood of better outcomes increases.

Jorge Cabrera
Senior Director
Casey Family Programs
San Diego, CA

Why was this topic chosen by the Advisory Committee?

The Father Involvement Interventions topic area is relevant to child welfare because to truly create a system that supports the best interests of children in out-of-home care, states and counties need to prioritize strategies that create equal access for fathers to be meaningfully involved in the lives of their children, and thus maximize the likelihood that the goals of safety, permanency and well-being are reached. Historically, mothers have been the primary focus of attention in the child welfare system. This has been mostly due to the fact that a large number of primary caretakers that come to the attention of child welfare are mothers and are seen as the identified client and the target of case plans. Thus, permanency planning has often been limited to targeting mothers and the maternal side of the families. In this mother-centric environment, the child welfare system has been increasingly recognizing the potential of missed opportunities for effective case and permanency planning when they are not actively involving the father and his side of the family. Several reports have revealed the lack of meaningful father engagement by child welfare workers. In response to this, the Children's Bureau, through its Child and Family Services Review (CFSR), now includes an assessment of the degree of father involvement as part of their review process of state child welfare systems. As other studies reveal, when fathers become positively involved, the likelihood of better outcomes increases.

Jorge Cabrera
Senior Director
Casey Family Programs
San Diego, CA

Topic Expert

The Father Involvement Interventions topic area was added in 2012. Patricia Kohl, PhD was the topic expert and was involved in identifying and rating any of the programs with an original load date in 2012 (as found on the bottom of the program's page on the CEBC) or others loaded earlier and added to this topic area when it launched. The topic area has grown over the years and any programs added since 2012 were identified by CEBC staff, the Scientific Panel, and/or the Advisory Committee. For these programs, Dr. Kohl was not involved in identifying or rating them.

Topic Expert

The Father Involvement Interventions topic area was added in 2012. Patricia Kohl, PhD was the topic expert and was involved in identifying and rating any of the programs with an original load date in 2012 (as found on the bottom of the program's page on the CEBC) or others loaded earlier and added to this topic area when it launched. The topic area has grown over the years and any programs added since 2012 were identified by CEBC staff, the Scientific Panel, and/or the Advisory Committee. For these programs, Dr. Kohl was not involved in identifying or rating them.

Programs

Supporting Father Involvement

SFI is a preventive intervention designed to enhance fathers' positive involvement with their children. The curriculum is based on an empirically-validated family risk model. This model predicts that children's development is predicted by risks and buffers in five interconnected domains:

  • Family members' characteristics
  • 3-generational expectations and relationship patterns
  • Quality of parent-child relationship
  • Quality of parents' relationship
  • Balance of stressors versus social support for the family.

The curriculum highlights the potential contributions fathers make to the family.

Scientific Rating 1

Parenting Together Project

PTP is an educational intervention for first-time parents that focuses on the development of fathers' knowledge, skills, and commitment to the fatherhood role. The programs goals are to increase mothers' support and expectations for the fathers' involvement; to foster co-parental teamwork in the couple; and to have the couple deal more constructively with contextual factors such as work and cultural expectations. The intervention consists of eight 2-hour sessions that are spread out between the second trimester of pregnancy and five months postpartum.

Scientific Rating 2

Dads MatterHV

Dads MatterHV (HV = Home Visitation) is a father inclusion enhancement designed to strengthen evidence-informed early home visitation services in ways that fully consider and include fathers’ roles, aiming to augment the preventive impact of home visitation on physical child abuse and neglect risk from either/both parents. The intervention is manualized and modular in nature, and designed to be flexibly delivered in conjunction with a standard home visiting program within the first 4 to 6 months of services. The intervention can be delivered flexibly in a variety of ways: during individual home visits with fathers and mothers, separately or conjointly, with service delivery occurring virtually, over the telephone, or in person. The intervention modules enhance and do not supplant standard home visiting services, guiding home visitors to assess fathers’ roles, engage, and intervene with biological fathers, working to reduce barriers to father engagement and build positive home visitor-father working relationships, improve the quality of father-mother co-parenting relationship, and directly support fathers in their roles as parents of young children.

Scientific Rating 3

24/7 Dad®

24/7 Dad® is a unique program designed to equip fathers with the self-awareness, compassion, and sense of responsibility that every good parent needs. It focuses on building the man first and the father second. It is available in both a basic and a more in-depth version:

  • 24/7 Dad® A.M., the basic version, is for first-time dads, or for fathers lacking vital skills, knowledge, and attitudes.
  • 24/7 Dad® P.M. includes more in-depth information for more experienced fathers, or for dads who have completed the A.M. program.

The philosophy behind the program supports the growth and development of fathers and children as caring and compassionate people who treat themselves, others, and the environment with respect and dignity. This philosophical basis of caring and compassion forms the underlying structure that constitutes the values that are taught in the program.

Scientific Rating NR

Boot Camp for New Dads®

Boot Camp for New Dads® (BCND, also known as Daddy Boot Camp®) is a unique father-to-father, community-based workshop that inspires and equips men of all economic levels, ages, and cultures to become confidently engaged with their infants, support their mates, and personally navigate their transformation into dads.

BCND directly addresses shaken baby syndrome, including explaining what it is and how to avoid getting in a situation that could lead to shaken baby syndrome. The idea of "if you feel yourself getting angry or frustrated, put the baby down in a safe place and leave the room" is emphasized and often Veteran Dads give advice and tips on how to deal with a crying baby to help mitigate those situations. Boot Camp also reinforces the positive role an involved, loving father has in his child's life which impacts the child's future in a variety of positive ways

Scientific Rating NR

Caring Dads: Helping Fathers Value Their Children

The Caring Dads program combines elements of parenting, fathering, and child protection practice to address the needs of maltreating fathers. Program principles emphasize the need to:

  • Enhance men's motivation
  • Promote child-centered fathering
  • Address men's ability to engage in respectful, non-abusive co-parenting with children's mothers
  • Recognize that children's experience of trauma will impact the rate of possible change
  • Work collaboratively with other service providers to ensure that children benefit (and are not unintentionally harmed) as a result of father's participation in intervention

The program uses a combination of motivation enhancement, parent education (including skills training and behavioral practice), and cognitive behavioral therapy to:

  • Improve men's recognition and prioritization of children's needs
  • Improve men's understanding of developmental stages
  • Improve men's respect and support for children's relationships with their mothers
  • Improve men's listening and using praise
  • Improve men's empathy for children's experiences of maltreatment
  • Identify and counter the distortions underlying men's past, and potentially ongoing, abuse of their children and/or children's mothers

Scientific Rating NR

Creating Lasting Family Connections® Fatherhood Program: Family Reintegration

Creating Lasting Family Connections® Fatherhood Program: Family Reintegration (CLFCFP) is a personal and family relationship strengthening experience that addresses the following multiple challenging and interconnected issues:

  • Physical or emotional family separation for extended periods (incarceration, military deployment, addiction, drug treatment, divorce, mental illness, child welfare involvement, out of town employment or work assignment, and other circumstances leading to physical or emotional disconnection
  • Any personal of family history of substance abuse (and/or recovery support); abuse and neglect, adverse childhood experiences
  • Any personal safety and violence-related issues
  • Sexual health issues including HIV and other sexually transmitted disease (STD) prevention

The program employs a multifaceted, strengths-based approach to strengthen personal and parental responsibility, parenting skills, and improve parental involvement and family relationships supporting personal, child, and family well-being.

The program supports problem identification and referrals to other community services for participants when necessary. This program is designed to be implemented in gender-specific groups.

Scientific Rating NR

Father/Male Involvement Preschool Teacher Education Program

The Father/Male Involvement Preschool Teacher Education Program assists teachers in developing the knowledge and skills needed to successfully plan, implement, and evaluate specific activities that encourage program involvement by fathers and other males who serve as father figures for school children. The focus and intensity of program activities varies based on the identified needs and interests of individual teachers and school teams. The program does not have a prescribed or set curriculum.

Scientific Rating NR

InsideOut Dad®

InsideOut Dad® strives to increase inmates’ contact with their children and improve inmates’ awareness, knowledge, and attitudes about being an involved, responsible, and committed father. It includes 12 core sessions and 6 optional reentry sessions that allow facilitators to customize the program for the unique needs of the fathers they serve. The optional reentry sessions help fathers address issues they may face upon reentering society (e.g., payment of child support, access and visitation, and financial management). The program includes an evaluation tool (questionnaire) that allows facilitators to measure changes in fathers as a result of participating in the program. InsideOut Dad® has been used in state and federal facilities, pre-release programs, and community organizations, among others.

Scientific Rating NR

Project Fatherhood

Project Fatherhood has fathers meet in a group setting. There the fathers discuss day-to-day issues involved with parenting their children. The members of the group can only relate to each other in a positive supportive manner. A children's group and a significant others' group also meet and do activities at the same time as the fathers' group.

Scientific Rating NR

The FATHER (Fostering Actions To Help Earnings and Responsibility) Project

The FATHER Project aims to empower fathers to overcome the barriers that prevent them from supporting their children economically and emotionally. It is designed to be a "one-stop shop," connecting low-income fathers with all the services they need in one location. The FATHER Project has developed a model for bringing together parenting education, child support, GED education, employment services, legal services, and early childhood education under one roof. In addition to fathers, mothers and children also actively participate in FATHER Project services. The model has been used with diverse populations, leveraging the expertise of culturally-specific organizations in implementing the holistic approach. The ultimate long-term impact of the program involves service recipients hopefully progressing to become community leaders through intensive engagement in one of three "Leadership Track" options after key program goals have been accomplished.

Scientific Rating NR

Programs

Supporting Father Involvement

SFI is a preventive intervention designed to enhance fathers' positive involvement with their children. The curriculum is based on an empirically-validated family risk model. This model predicts that children's development is predicted by risks and buffers in five interconnected domains:

  • Family members' characteristics
  • 3-generational expectations and relationship patterns
  • Quality of parent-child relationship
  • Quality of parents' relationship
  • Balance of stressors versus social support for the family.

The curriculum highlights the potential contributions fathers make to the family.

Scientific Rating 1

Parenting Together Project

PTP is an educational intervention for first-time parents that focuses on the development of fathers' knowledge, skills, and commitment to the fatherhood role. The programs goals are to increase mothers' support and expectations for the fathers' involvement; to foster co-parental teamwork in the couple; and to have the couple deal more constructively with contextual factors such as work and cultural expectations. The intervention consists of eight 2-hour sessions that are spread out between the second trimester of pregnancy and five months postpartum.

Scientific Rating 2

Dads MatterHV

Dads MatterHV (HV = Home Visitation) is a father inclusion enhancement designed to strengthen evidence-informed early home visitation services in ways that fully consider and include fathers’ roles, aiming to augment the preventive impact of home visitation on physical child abuse and neglect risk from either/both parents. The intervention is manualized and modular in nature, and designed to be flexibly delivered in conjunction with a standard home visiting program within the first 4 to 6 months of services. The intervention can be delivered flexibly in a variety of ways: during individual home visits with fathers and mothers, separately or conjointly, with service delivery occurring virtually, over the telephone, or in person. The intervention modules enhance and do not supplant standard home visiting services, guiding home visitors to assess fathers’ roles, engage, and intervene with biological fathers, working to reduce barriers to father engagement and build positive home visitor-father working relationships, improve the quality of father-mother co-parenting relationship, and directly support fathers in their roles as parents of young children.

Scientific Rating 3

24/7 Dad®

24/7 Dad® is a unique program designed to equip fathers with the self-awareness, compassion, and sense of responsibility that every good parent needs. It focuses on building the man first and the father second. It is available in both a basic and a more in-depth version:

  • 24/7 Dad® A.M., the basic version, is for first-time dads, or for fathers lacking vital skills, knowledge, and attitudes.
  • 24/7 Dad® P.M. includes more in-depth information for more experienced fathers, or for dads who have completed the A.M. program.

The philosophy behind the program supports the growth and development of fathers and children as caring and compassionate people who treat themselves, others, and the environment with respect and dignity. This philosophical basis of caring and compassion forms the underlying structure that constitutes the values that are taught in the program.

Scientific Rating NR

Boot Camp for New Dads®

Boot Camp for New Dads® (BCND, also known as Daddy Boot Camp®) is a unique father-to-father, community-based workshop that inspires and equips men of all economic levels, ages, and cultures to become confidently engaged with their infants, support their mates, and personally navigate their transformation into dads.

BCND directly addresses shaken baby syndrome, including explaining what it is and how to avoid getting in a situation that could lead to shaken baby syndrome. The idea of "if you feel yourself getting angry or frustrated, put the baby down in a safe place and leave the room" is emphasized and often Veteran Dads give advice and tips on how to deal with a crying baby to help mitigate those situations. Boot Camp also reinforces the positive role an involved, loving father has in his child's life which impacts the child's future in a variety of positive ways

Scientific Rating NR

Caring Dads: Helping Fathers Value Their Children

The Caring Dads program combines elements of parenting, fathering, and child protection practice to address the needs of maltreating fathers. Program principles emphasize the need to:

  • Enhance men's motivation
  • Promote child-centered fathering
  • Address men's ability to engage in respectful, non-abusive co-parenting with children's mothers
  • Recognize that children's experience of trauma will impact the rate of possible change
  • Work collaboratively with other service providers to ensure that children benefit (and are not unintentionally harmed) as a result of father's participation in intervention

The program uses a combination of motivation enhancement, parent education (including skills training and behavioral practice), and cognitive behavioral therapy to:

  • Improve men's recognition and prioritization of children's needs
  • Improve men's understanding of developmental stages
  • Improve men's respect and support for children's relationships with their mothers
  • Improve men's listening and using praise
  • Improve men's empathy for children's experiences of maltreatment
  • Identify and counter the distortions underlying men's past, and potentially ongoing, abuse of their children and/or children's mothers

Scientific Rating NR

Creating Lasting Family Connections® Fatherhood Program: Family Reintegration

Creating Lasting Family Connections® Fatherhood Program: Family Reintegration (CLFCFP) is a personal and family relationship strengthening experience that addresses the following multiple challenging and interconnected issues:

  • Physical or emotional family separation for extended periods (incarceration, military deployment, addiction, drug treatment, divorce, mental illness, child welfare involvement, out of town employment or work assignment, and other circumstances leading to physical or emotional disconnection
  • Any personal of family history of substance abuse (and/or recovery support); abuse and neglect, adverse childhood experiences
  • Any personal safety and violence-related issues
  • Sexual health issues including HIV and other sexually transmitted disease (STD) prevention

The program employs a multifaceted, strengths-based approach to strengthen personal and parental responsibility, parenting skills, and improve parental involvement and family relationships supporting personal, child, and family well-being.

The program supports problem identification and referrals to other community services for participants when necessary. This program is designed to be implemented in gender-specific groups.

Scientific Rating NR

Father/Male Involvement Preschool Teacher Education Program

The Father/Male Involvement Preschool Teacher Education Program assists teachers in developing the knowledge and skills needed to successfully plan, implement, and evaluate specific activities that encourage program involvement by fathers and other males who serve as father figures for school children. The focus and intensity of program activities varies based on the identified needs and interests of individual teachers and school teams. The program does not have a prescribed or set curriculum.

Scientific Rating NR

InsideOut Dad®

InsideOut Dad® strives to increase inmates’ contact with their children and improve inmates’ awareness, knowledge, and attitudes about being an involved, responsible, and committed father. It includes 12 core sessions and 6 optional reentry sessions that allow facilitators to customize the program for the unique needs of the fathers they serve. The optional reentry sessions help fathers address issues they may face upon reentering society (e.g., payment of child support, access and visitation, and financial management). The program includes an evaluation tool (questionnaire) that allows facilitators to measure changes in fathers as a result of participating in the program. InsideOut Dad® has been used in state and federal facilities, pre-release programs, and community organizations, among others.

Scientific Rating NR

Project Fatherhood

Project Fatherhood has fathers meet in a group setting. There the fathers discuss day-to-day issues involved with parenting their children. The members of the group can only relate to each other in a positive supportive manner. A children's group and a significant others' group also meet and do activities at the same time as the fathers' group.

Scientific Rating NR

The FATHER (Fostering Actions To Help Earnings and Responsibility) Project

The FATHER Project aims to empower fathers to overcome the barriers that prevent them from supporting their children economically and emotionally. It is designed to be a "one-stop shop," connecting low-income fathers with all the services they need in one location. The FATHER Project has developed a model for bringing together parenting education, child support, GED education, employment services, legal services, and early childhood education under one roof. In addition to fathers, mothers and children also actively participate in FATHER Project services. The model has been used with diverse populations, leveraging the expertise of culturally-specific organizations in implementing the holistic approach. The ultimate long-term impact of the program involves service recipients hopefully progressing to become community leaders through intensive engagement in one of three "Leadership Track" options after key program goals have been accomplished.

Scientific Rating NR