The Child Welfare Information Gateway created a five-part podcast series that illustrated ways that states and tribal jurisdictions have supported kinship caregivers. Part 2 of this series focused on Washington State’s approach to providing kinship support services. Topics discussed included:

• Differences in formal and informal kinship caregivers and the differences caseworkers may have to navigate when working with each,
• Cultural considerations caseworkers and others should be aware of when working with rural and Latinx communities and families,
• The importance of building relationships across a community, not just with kinship families, and
• Implementation of one-time stipends for kinship families in Washington State.

Fathers, children, and families benefit when fathers have healthy coparenting and romantic relationships. Given the importance of healthy relationships, many fatherhood programs address coparenting and romantic relationships in programming and aim to improve skills that are applicable across different types of relationships, including communication, conflict management, and emotional self-regulation. For American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) fathers, it is important to consider the diverse cultural traditions, histories, and unique political status of Tribes as sovereign nations. The purpose of this Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief is to provide practice-based, contextually relevant strategies that fatherhood programs serving AIAN fathers can use to support their healthy coparenting and romantic relationships.

Many fatherhood programs aim to or are required to include programming that supports healthy coparenting and romantic relationships through skill building and other services. However, despite the importance of supporting these healthy relationships, it can be difficult to do so in practice. This brief identifies three barriers fatherhood programs often face when addressing healthy relationships with fathers: engaging fathers in romantic relationship content, determining and implementing approaches for coparent engagement in relationship education, and providing support for fathers navigating legal systems and agencies that can affect their coparenting relationships. It also provides three resources that offer strategies fatherhood programs can use to address these barriers and better support fathers’ healthy relationships.

The Strengthening the Implementation of Responsible Fatherhood Programs (SIRF) project uses rapid learning cycles in an effort to improve the enrollment, engagement, and retention of fathers in nine current federal Fatherhood Family-focused, Interconnected, Resilient, and Essential (FIRE) grantees and one former recipient of a federal fatherhood grant. This brief illustrates how SIRF and program teams used a human-centered design technique called customer journey mapping, a collaborative process that puts the needs and goals of participants at the center of efforts to design or improve a product or service. Mapping helped both the program and SIRF teams to better understand fathers’ program experiences and perspectives, and to identify where program processes might be restructured to increase fathers’ participation.

Fathers’ role within families has gradually evolved from traditional family breadwinner to that of more full and equal coparent involved in all aspects of caregiving. Research has shown that positive father-child involvement leads to better outcomes for children and families, and a critical component of improving fathers’ involvement with their children is supporting their coparenting and romantic or intimate relationships. In addition to providing parenting and economic stability services, fatherhood programs that receive federal funding are required to provide relationship education, which positions them ideally to help fathers establish and maintain healthy relationships. The Coparenting and Healthy Relationship and Marriage Education for Dads (CHaRMED) project has aimed to better understand how fatherhood programs support fathers’ coparenting and intimate relationships. This brief highlights some important lessons learned from CHaRMED that can inform how fatherhood program practitioners support fathers’ relationships and improve their—and their families’—well-being.

This Child Welfare Information Gateway podcast discusses the National Training and Development Curriculum (NTDC) for Foster and Adoptive Parents, an organization developed to provide free curriculum and resources for potential foster or adoptive parents to give them the information and tools they need to parent a child that has experienced trauma, separation, or loss. Podcast topics include common technical and implementation challenges and knowledge gaps that current training presents to child welfare agencies and trainers; how NTDC for Foster and Adoptive Parents offers trainers and facilitators flexibility to meet both their jurisdictions and parents’ needs; key messages woven throughout the curriculum’s themes to help parents understand trauma, culture, and how to best respond to conflict; and takeaways participants have shared with their facilitators.

A healthy relationship can play a critical role in establishing family stability for both adults and children. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on families nationwide with reports of higher rates of stress and declining marriages. Understanding the importance of healthy relationships in promoting economic stability among TANF recipients, the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) awards Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education (HMRE) grants for a variety of programs working to integrate skills-based relationship education into employment services. During this June 28, 2022 OFA webinar, HMRE grantees and subject matter experts discussed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on marriage and relationships. Webinar participants learned numerous ways HMRE grantees are engaging clients in programming such as family stability, healthy relationships, and economic security; explored how HMRE grantees adjusted during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how their clients benefited from the pandemic adaptations; and heard about how these grantees will utilize lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic to improve future efforts.

Webinar speakers included: Nikkole Abbas, Director of Family Support and Advocacy Services, Youth and Family Services of South Dakota; Robert Ketchum, Data Manager/Adult Educator, Youth and Family Services of South Dakota; and Mariana Falconier, Associate Professor of Family Science in the School of Public Health and Project Director of the University of Maryland’s TOGETHER program. The webinar was moderated by Robyn Cenizal, Project Director, Family Strengthening, ICF.

Grandparents serve a critical role in the tribal family structure. They are often the glue that holds the family together, providing the place to gather. They are keepers of family stories, cultural knowledge, and calm voices of reason. This compendium provides resources for engaging and supporting grandparents and other extended family members to help Native children and families achieve their best outcomes.

This practice guide is a resource for a broad range of human services and fatherhood programs striving 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. It also describes various strategies programs can use to develop partnerships that can increase father engagement in programming and improve outcomes for fathers and their families. The guide’s goal is to help programs develop strategic partnerships that are mutually beneficial and can increase father engagement in their communities.

AdoptUSKids will host a webinar on June 2, 2022 at 3:00 p.m. ET where presenters will discuss the impact of parenting dynamics and expectations on the relationships in families formed through adoption, foster care, or kinship care. The webinar will explore how to engage parents in examining their past and how their actions contribute to family dysfunction and increase the risk for placement disruption. The presenters — child welfare professionals with lived experience — will also offer tips about providing services to the whole family to improve relationship dynamics and prevent unnecessary placement disruption.