Working Dads: Final Report on the Fathers at Work Initiative

“During the past several decades, many efforts have focused on the crisis that lies at the intersection of proliferating single-parent households, absent fathers and poverty. In 2001, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation launched Fathers at Work to test approaches for helping young low-income noncustodial fathers provide for themselves and their children; the project was designed to inform practitioners and policy makers about effective interventions for this population. Six community-based workforce organizations from across the country were selected to participate and provided a combination of employment, child support and parenting services. Participants in Fathers at Work had an average age of 26 and were overwhelmingly men of color (about three quarters were African American and 18 percent were Hispanic); a majority had a criminal record. Public/Private Ventures (P/PV) was responsible for overseeing the initiative and conducting its evaluation and for creating a series of reports and tools for the field based on lessons from Fathers at Work. The final report, from which this summary is drawn, explored the strategies used by the six sites, presented evidence of the program model’s effectiveness and offered recommendations for policy and practice” (p.i). (Abstractor: Author)

The authors reported findings related to the following categories: Employment • "Fathers at Work participants earned $11,025 per year at follow-up, about twice as much as comparison group fathers earned at a comparable point in time. These earnings were also $4,602 more than Fathers at Work participants made during the year prior to enrollment in the program" (p.vi). Fatherhood • "The likelihood that participating fathers visited their child in the month before the follow-up survey was similar to that seen in the comparison groups and unchanged from when Fathers at Work participants entered the programs; the quality of the fathers’ relationships with their children was also similar to what was reported by the comparison groups. • Fathers at Work participants reported more arguments with the mothers of their children than did comparison group fathers. It is possible that the fatherhood workshops increased fathers’ interest in and opinions about the well-being of their children, thus creating additional conflict about child-rearing issues" (p.vi) Child Support • "Participants with support orders in place paid an average of $90.32 in child support in the month before the follow-up interview, significantly more than was paid by comparison group fathers with support orders in place (an average of $38.13). Participants’ payments grew significantly between baseline (about $32 per month)and follow-up. • The average amount of informal support—money given directly to the mother rather than through the formal child support system—reported by the Fathers at Work participants was about the same as that reported by comparison group fathers at follow-up ($113 compared with $112), even though the participants were paying more formal support. The percentage of Fathers at Work participants who paid in formally also did not differ from the comparison group" (p.vi-vii). Conclusion • "Comparisons with similar young noncustodial fathers suggest that the Fathers at Work programs may have had a strong effect on earnings and child support. As described later in the report, while there were differences in the strategies used by participating sites, all six implemented a model that included employment, child support and fatherhood services. Findings from our evaluation suggest that this model of combined services holds promise for young noncustodial fathers” (p.9). (Abstractor: Author)

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2009
• Author(s): Spaulding, Shayne; Baldwin Grossman, Jean; Wallace, Dee
• Organizational Author(s): Public/Private Ventures
• Funding Source: Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Wesley Peterson
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies