Fatherhood

This practice guide is a resource for a broad range of human services and fatherhood programs aiming to be more inclusive of and responsive to fathers. Building on literature from the field and interviews with human services providers that engage fathers in services, this guide outlines the benefits of developing community partnerships between father-focused and other human services programs.

Human services programs can implement recruitment and retention strategies to increase father engagement and participation in services to promote child and family well-being. When included in programming, fathers have the opportunity to expand their valuable role in their families and help generate positive child and family outcomes.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many human services organizations, including fatherhood programs, adapted their engagement approaches as the needs of the people they serve changed.

Child support payments are associated with increased parent-child engagement, which can lead not only to better academic and social outcomes for children but also to better parent-child and parent-parent relationships. Moreover, child support payments lifted nearly three-quarters of a million families out of poverty in 2017.

This infographic visualizes a framework for father engagement in human services, detailing key approaches and strategies used by programs, organizations, and systems.  Related Products:

This infographic defines "father engagement" and highlights ways programs, organizations, and systems play a role in promoting father engagement in services.  Related Products:

Fathers want to and can play an important role in their children’s lives, but too often human services programs have not focused on supporting dads. This brief identifies approaches and strategies at the program, organization, and system levels to strengthen engagement of fathers by human services programs. 

This case study focuses on how the nonprofit statewide California WIC Association supports local agencies to involve fathers in programming related to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Key lessons and considerations for human services programs include:

This case study focuses on how the Northeast Florida Healthy Start Coalition engaged fathers in its programming through the development of a fatherhood program, Fatherhood PRIDE. Key lessons and considerations include how human services programs can promote father engagement by:

This case study focuses on how a fatherhood program in rural Ohio—ForeverDads—reaches a subpopulation of fathers through partnerships with area substance use disorder treatment programs. Key lessons and considerations include how human services programs can promote father engagement by: