Introduction

The Father Inclusive Practice Forum in Newcastle, Australia, developed nine (9) principles of father inclusive practice based on the premise that fathers are important for the well-being of infants and children. They are:

1. Father awareness
2. Respect for fathers
3. Equity and access
4. Fathers' strength
5. Practitioners' strength
6. Advocacy and empowerment
7. Partnership with fathers
8. Recruitment and training
9. Research and evaluation (University of Newcastle, Australia)

For a detailed description of examples of practice implications for service providers, view or download Principles Implications for Service Providers.

The Children's Bureau Child and Family Services Reviews Program Improvement Plan (PIP) noted several areas that needed improvement regarding fathers and their children:

• The uneven practice involving children/youth and parents, particularly fathers, in assessing and addressing needs and risk issues, case planning and decision making.
• Insufficient efforts to promote visitation with fathers.
• A need to develop an advanced training module on specific strategies for engagement of fathers and related materials to address organizational culture change.
• A need for increased efforts to locate fathers and strengthen relationships.

Therefore, counties were encouraged to participate in activities that would be inclusive of fathers. As a result, counties implemented father engagement strategies that met their specific county needs. This website will, when possible, highlight the specific county, specific father engagement strategy and suggestions for systematically implementing and evaluating each.

Supporting Father Involvement (SFI)

Results from the Supporting Father Involvement (SFI) project in four California counties included, but were not limited to, the following benefits:

• An increase in father involvement related to child care tasks and visitation
• No increase in children's problem behavior
• A decrease in anxiety in fathers
• A decline in mother's parenting stress
• A reduction in parents' violent behavior
• Relationship satisfaction for those people who identified that they were in a relationship

Other Benefits to Children

• Greater empathy
• Less gender role stereotyping
• More awareness of needs and rights of others
• More generous
• Higher self-esteem
• More self-control and less impulsivity
• Increased curiosity
• Increased exploration of the world around them
• Less hesitance and fear in new situations
• Greater tolerance for stress and frustration
• More willingness to try new things
• Higher verbal skills
• Higher scores on assessments of cognitive competence
• Daughter's increased competence in math
• Son's IQ is related to father' s nurturing (Minnesota Fathers and Families Network)

This website contains:

• Program descriptions
• Important definitions and concepts
• Father engagement strategies
• Planning tools
• Organizational tools
• Training tools
• Evaluation tools
• Other resources and examples of what are needed when considering implementation or actually implementing Father Engagement initiatives and approaches

You will find helpful information about how to implement and evaluate an array of Father Engagement strategies that might be similar to ones you have already implemented or are thinking about implementing and which are aligned with your organizational needs.

The website is the result of a pilot project involving the child welfare agencies from 11 counties interested in implementing father engagement strategies most suitably aligned with each county's organizational goals.

This toolkit provides information using two assumptions about father engagement:

ASSUMPTION #1 - Users are tasked with helping to make their organizations more reflective and inclusive of fathers and don't know where to start, what to do, or who to ask AND

ASSUMPTION #2 - Users may have implemented some or all components of a father engagement initiative and need help with organizing specific components or pieces of their work.

For both of these scenarios, this toolkit can be useful. For users who don't know where to start, Stages of Implementation provides suggestions from beginning to end, using the five (5) stages of implementation as a guide. Although not exhaustive, the document provides a few case examples as well.

If users want to choose the tools individually, they can select specific tools located in the following categories:

• Definitional Tools - Definitional Tools describe the problem that the county or organization is trying to solve. They explain the logic and theory used in making a decision about a practice, program or intervention. They define the practice, program or intervention in ways that are concise and easily understandable and can be executed by using the tools that have been provided in the toolkit. They articulate the benefits for their target population.
• Engagement & Communication Tools - Engagement and Communication Tools provide leaders with materials for communicating to stakeholders about the practice, program or intervention. They might include informational statistics about the issue to be addressed, the vision for implementation, and promotional or advertisement items. Engagement and communication tools are used to send a message to staff and others about the future direction of the county or organization related to the new practice, program or intervention. The tools can be downloaded to lead focused discussions for a variety of audiences.
• Assessment Tools - Assessment Tools guide information-gathering from quantitative and qualitative sources. They assist in determining whether your county or organization is ready for the new practice, program or intervention. The assessment tools contained in specific toolkits may be different depending on the practice. They can be tailored so that they meet county or organizational assessment needs.
• Planning Tools - Planning Tools are things to help implementers put their county or organizational goals into achievable, sequential action steps that enable measurement of progress toward full implementation.
• Training/Coaching and TOL - Training is one of the links between policy and practice. Training tools are helpful in teaching policies and procedures, imparting values and principles, modeling awareness and conveying steps for implementation. The tools in this section can be used for transfer of knowledge and skills from the classroom to the field.
• Evaluation Tools - Evaluation Tools provide a framework for consideration in a county or organization, provide suggestions on how to extract or export data, and assist a county in knowing that other reports can be used to get results for their implementation efforts. The goal is to increase the fidelity of evaluation efforts by providing assistance in the form of the materials in this section.
• Fiscal & Funding Tools - In times of scarcity, finding money to fund new projects may be difficult because organizations are already taxed, and managers have to operate with stricter budget requirements and limits. This is particularly true for the child welfare system; the same or similar level of productivity is expected with less resource allocations. Potential funding sources may be available for your practice, program or intervention. Potential funding sources may be available for your practice, program or intervention. Sometimes, people have been able to secure funding in creative ways.

NOTE: You can also view or download a Word version of this page: A Sample of Napa County's Father Engagement Efforts (from beginning to end).

1. (DEVELOPMENT OF A TEAM) Whenever a new program or new way of doing business is initiated, it is recommended that a team be developed to help with getting the project off the ground. Team members may volunteer, be reassigned or be selected to participate. Napa County developed a team, called “Roots,” to work on making the county more father friendly. The team consists of social workers, social work supervisors, support staff, etc. All the team members report to the department manager at least once a week, and she provides supervisory oversight to the team.
   
    
2. (BUY-IN) It is not necessary to have staff buy-in, but it certainly makes implementation more seamless. Napa County held a department-wide meeting as a Kick-Off strategy for this project. Workers were invited to give input about the things that they would like to see in the county as it relates to father engagement. By doing this, the entire department was able to provide direct feedback about their hopes and concerns and as a result there was buy-in from staff at all levels.
   
    
3. (TRAINING & AWARENESS) Training and information dissemination is a way to convey important messages to a large number of staff. In this instance, a county-wide father awareness training was held to educate and reinforce the importance of the impact of fathers in their children’s lives and the necessity to be more engaging with fathers in child welfare. A content expert was brought in to train the entire county.
   
    
4. (LOGIC MODEL) A logic model may look different for different projects. Essentially it is a graphic depiction of resources, activities and projected outcomes. It may contain goals and objectives. The logic model can be used as a road map, of sorts, and frames the direction that the county would like to go. It continually gets updated and revised as strategies are implemented, assessed and evaluated. Napa County developed a Logic Model that would help them focus their attention on the strategies that they selected.
   
    
5. (EVALUATION QUESTIONS) After the logic model has been created and/or in conjunction with the development of the logic model, questions of interest should be created that are aligned with the logic model and with anticipated outcomes. For example, Napa County selected questions about Father Engagement that they hoped would be answered as a result of their new practices. The questions are:
   1. Are staff attitudes about father engagement improved as a result of Napa County’s efforts?
   2. After connections have been identified, at disposition, do children maintain long-term relationships?
   3. Are more fathers involved in child welfare as a result of Napa County’s efforts?
      
      Napa County hopes to find the answers to these questions by analyzing data that it collects.
      
       
6. (DATA COLLECTION) The data collection process is when the agency/organization collects and stores data that will be used for analysis at a later date. Use of Administrative Data and Databases is one form of data collection, sometimes called quantitative data. CWS/CMS, Safe Measures and CSSR are excellent sources for gathering this type of data. Another form of data collection is through the use of non-administrative databases, sometimes called qualitative data. Surveys, direct observation, interviews and/or focus groups are excellent sources for gathering this type of data.
   
    
   1. Napa County created a special projects code in CWS/CMS that would track families involved in their father engagement project. This made it easier for them to track, among other things:
      1. How many fathers are being served in the following programs:
         1. ER
         2. FM
         3. FR
         4. Court
         5. LT
      2. What is the ethnic breakdown of fathers who have been identified in each service component?
      3. What, if any, is the increase in the number of fathers being served pre- and post-father engagement activities?
      4. What percentage of fathers are living in the homes with their child(ren)?
      5. What is the average number of visits between fathers and their children within a certain time frame?
         
          
   2. Napa County created several data collection forms that would help:
      1. To learn about known and potential paternal contacts
      2. Special considerations about permanency
      3. To know related and non-related individuals who are connected to the family
         
          
   3. Napa County conducted an evaluation of a training session with a content expert. Attendees were asked to complete a survey at the end of this training.
      
       
7. (DATA ANALYSIS) Data analysis is the process by which people look at their data and interpret what it means to them and their agency. Napa County analyzed their data from their training session and came up with the following results:
   1. Workers reported increased awareness about father engagement
   2. Workers felt that they learned something from the father awareness training and would practice what they learned in training to their job
      
      It is still too early to interpret results from the collection of other county data.

Eleven counties agreed to participate in a father engagement pilot project centered on making their organizations friendlier to and implementing activities that would facilitate better engagement with fathers. National experts were hired to help the counties evaluate their activities. The Regional Training Academies (RTAs) acted as the regional liaison between the counties and state. The statewide contingency met periodically to plan, edit and revise their father engagement activities so that they reflected organizational needs.