Recruiting Fathers to Parenting Programs: Advice from Dads and Fatherhood Program Providers - Europe PMC Article. Abstract. The benefits of high- quality father- child relationships for fathers and children alike are well documented. While evidence suggests parenting programs can improve the quality of father- child relationships, few fathers participate in such programs. This qualitative study aims to fill the gap in knowledge on best practices for recruiting urban African American fathers, a group of fathers with unique parenting challenges, to parenting programs.
Focus groups were conducted with 2. Semi- structured interviews were also conducted with a nationwide sample of 1. Creating father friendly parenting classes. 1001 fathers completed an online survey of their experiences with, and opinions about, parenting programs. Fathers were on average 42 years old and their children were on average 9 years old. Fathers tended to be married (76%. Recruitment strategies based on emergent themes from the focus groups and interviews are presented here. Themes included using word- of- mouth recruitment, increasing advertising, targeting advertising specifically to urban African American fathers, providing transportation and incentives, recruiting through the courts, collaborating with other community agencies, and offering parenting programming along with other programming valued by fathers such as employment assistance. Implications for developing strategies for recruiting urban African American fathers to parenting programs are discussed. Keywords: Fathers, parenting programs, recruitment. Introduction. Children experience more positive outcomes and fewer negative outcomes when they experience positive father- child relationships, regardless of whether the father resides in the home. These children have fewer behavior problems, less psychological distress, and are less likely to engage in risky or antisocial behaviors compared to children who experience negative father- child relationships (Black, Dubowitz, & Starr, 1. Harris, Furtenburg, & Marmer, 1. One strategy to enhance father- child relationships is through father participation in parenting programs. They have been shown to increase fathers’ accessibility to their children, the amount of direct involvement with their children, and their support of children's learning, while also increasing children's math readiness and decreasing parent reports of children's problem behaviors (Fagan & Iglesias, 1. Although parenting programs benefit fathers and their children, recruitment of fathers to such programs remains a challenge for fatherhood program providers (Bayley, Wallace, & Choudhry, 2. Further, there is insufficient published research to guide recruitment efforts. The purpose of this paper is to present strategies for recruiting urban African American fathers to parenting programs that emerged from data collected via focus groups with 2. African American fathers and semi- structured interviews with 1. Fathers today face challenges not experienced in previous generations. First, the number of children who grow up in single parent, typically mother- headed, households has surged in recent decades and is now estimated to be 3. Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2. Second, the changing nature of the family, with more women working outside the home, has altered the traditional father role and how fatherhood is defined (Cornille, Barlow, & Cleveland, 2. The definition of fatherhood has shifted from father as breadwinner to father as active parent and nurturer (Cornille et al., 2. Lamb, 2. 00. 0). This new conceptualization of fatherhood may cause role confusion for men whose own fathers did not model this behavior. Finally, more children than ever live in poverty, which puts them at risk for negative behavioral and educational outcomes (United States Census Bureau, 2. Consequently, poverty and its associated risks to children poses additional parenting challenges to many fathers. Urban African American fathers experience these parenting challenges more frequently than other groups of fathers. Sixty- seven percent of African American children are currently being raised primarily by their mothers (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2. This is nearly double the rate of all children, as noted above. African American children make up the largest racial or ethnic group of those living in poverty, with 3. African American children living in poverty compared to 3. Hispanic children and 1. Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2. Across races, mothers with custody of children may serve as gatekeepers, making it difficult for some fathers to consistently gain access to their children and provide nurturance to them (Bloomer, Ann Sipe, & Ruedt, 2. Additionally, the stress caused by constantly struggling to make ends meet, poverty can also limit the amount of time and resources a father can spend on his child (Threlfall, Seay, & Kohl, 2. Despite these challenges, urban African American fathers are in a position to positively influence their children's lives. Research consistently shows that high quality father involvement, regardless of whether or not the father is living in the same home as his child, can alter children's emotional, behavioral, and educational trajectories for the better. In a meta analysis of 6. Amato & Gilbreth, 1. Findings from this meta- analysis have been upheld in a more recent study on father involvement that also took mother involvement into account in their analyses. Flouri & Buchanan (2. Moreover, father involvement is associated with delinquent behavior. A longitudinal study of urban families showed that increases in non- resident father involvement, reported by adolescents and mothers, were linked to reductions in adolescents’ self reports of delinquent behavior and mothers’ reports of delinquent behavior on the delinquency subscale of the Child Behavior Checklist (Coley & Medeiros, 2. Given the parenting challenges that urban African American fathers face and our knowledge that high- quality father involvement impacts children positively, it is necessary that we improve efforts to recruit fathers to programs that help them overcome these challenges and improve father- child relationships. Parenting programs. Parenting programs are a category of interventions designed to strengthen parenting competencies and improve parent- child interactions (Fletcher, Freeman, & Matthey, 2. Research consistently demonstrates such programs are effective for improving parenting behavior and attitudes as well as children's behaviors (Barlow & Stewart- Brown, 2. Kaminski, Valle, Filene, & Boyle, 2. Effects have been particularly strong for improving parenting knowledge, parent attitudes, parenting self- efficacy and for improving children's internalizing behaviors (Kaminski et al., 2. Although the body of literature on parenting program effectiveness overwhelmingly focuses on mothers (Lundahl, Tollefson, Risser, & Lovejoy, 2. One study of the Head Start curriculum adapted for fathers found that, after completion, fathers who were highly involved in the program spent more time with their children, had greater access to their children, and were more supportive of their children's learning compared to fathers who were less involved in the program (Fagan & Iglesias, 1. An evaluation of the DADs Family Project found participation by fathers led to reductions in harsh and physical punishment between pre- and post- test (Cornille et al., 2. Fathers of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who participated in a parenting program used more praise and less negative talk toward their children compared to those in the control group (Fabiano et al., 2. Similarly, a study of children with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and their parents found that fathers who participated in parent training displayed less negative parenting, including using fewer critical statements and less harsh discipline (Reid, Webster- Stratton, & Hammond, 2. Low rates of father participation in parenting programs. While research on their effectiveness remains scant, the number of parenting programs available to fathers has grown in recent years, partly as a result of major policy changes for urban families. For example, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1. PRWORA), also known as “welfare reform”, led to an increase in programs for fathers, including the Responsible Fatherhood Demonstration Projects (Anderson, Kohler, & Lettiecq, 2. More recently, federal policy has prioritized the creation of support services focusing on responsible fatherhood (U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2. For example, the Claims Resolution Act of 2. U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2. Emphasis was also placed on providing parenting assistance to fathers experiencing economical difficulties. Under the Claims Resolution Act, Pathways to Responsible Fatherhood Grants were awarded to projects aimed toward assisting low- income fathers. Yet despite this increase in opportunities for participation by fathers in parenting programs, fathers remain under- represented in these programs (Bayley et al., 2. Recruitment of fathers into parenting programs is challenging. Studies on rates of father participation in programs reflects this difficulty. A meta- analysis of the parenting program Triple P, which targets both fathers and mothers, analyzed randomized controlled trials of Triple P that either specifically targeted fathers or included fathers (Fletcher et al., 2. The study found that out of 4. Fletcher et al., 2. Furthermore, a systematic review of father participation in child maltreatment prevention programs, all of which involved a parenting education component, found father participation rates to be less than 3. Smith, Duggan, Bair- Merritt, & Cox, 2. These studies reviewed father participation without differentiating between races and ethnic groups. While data on rates of African American father participation in parenting programs are scant, there is sufficient evidence to speculate that participation rates among minority parents may be lower than among other groups.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
September 2017
Categories |