This letter from Clarence H. Carter, Director of the Office of Family Assistance, highlights several OFA-funded resources available to states wanting to participate in efforts to strengthen marriages, support healthy relationships, and encourage positive father involvement. These resources include: The National Resource Center for Healthy Marriage and Families, which helps human services agencies develop the capacity to promote healthy relationship skills and The National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse, which is a resource for responsible fatherhood information.

This video from the Center for Court Innovation explains the UPNEXT program, a workforce development program for fathers, many of whom have interacted with the justice system. The information is given from the perspective of a successful program participant who explains how UPNEXT helped him become updated on his child support, find and maintain a job, and regain custody of his daughter.

This article summarizes several listening sessions that the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse held with fathers to gain information about workforce development efforts. It highlights three main themes and suggestions that emerged from the sessions – Put People before Performance, Motivate Everyone to Self-Actualization, and Utilize Multi-Generational Approaches.

On March 21, 2018 from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. EST, in recognition of Women’s History Month, this National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse webinar will highlight the important roles that women have played, and continue to play, in the field of responsible fatherhood. Presenters will: discuss how the voices of women have influenced fatherhood research, advocacy, and public policy; explore the role of female professionals in the development and implementation of fatherhood services; and provide tips from female experts on how women can effectively deliver front-line fatherhood services such as case management and group facilitation.

This article, published in the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, describes programs designed to provide employment support to fathers who are in the criminal justice system. The T.O.R.I. Program and RIDGE Project are described in detail in their approach to provide assistance for reentry, particularly for fathers. The article also discusses grants provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for fathers and resources available to help support employment and parenting of returning young fathers.

This Congressional Research Service report explores the involvement of child support enforcement in fatherhood programs and discusses initiatives to promote and support father-child interaction outside the parents’ relationship. The report also focuses on the need many see for more work-oriented programs that would enable fathers to consistently meet their child support obligations and reviews the current initiatives already in place.

This tool developed by the National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) helps organizations such as local Head Starts, community action agencies, and family support programs assess their capacity to develop services for fathers and increase father involvement in existing family services. It offers low- and no-cost strategies that organizations can use to better engage fathers in services.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation developed this report to study the impact of couples-based family strengthening services for incarcerated fathers and their families. The Office of Family Assistance funded 12 grantees to support healthy relationship programming for incarcerated fathers, their partners, and their families from 2006-2011, and this report focuses on the findings from four of those programs. Three out of four of the healthy relationship programs had weak and non-significant finds, but one program showed sustained positive effects on multiple relationship and parenting outcomes. The authors suggest that more robust and comprehensive interventions might be necessary for justice-involved families.

This MDRC brief describes three innovative approaches to low-income fathers from the Building Bridges and Bonds (B3) study. The B3 study is a partnership between six organizations that provide Responsible Fatherhood services, MDRC, and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation. The goal of this study is to identify services that can improve outcomes of fathers who participate in Responsible Fatherhood programs. Innovations highlighted in this brief include a cognitive behavioral workshop that builds skills for employment stability, an interactive approach to high-quality parenting, and an engagement and retention approach.