On June 11, 2014, the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) hosted a brown bag “Doing the Best I Can: Fatherhood in the Inner City.” This brown bag featured Kathryn Edin from John’s Hopkins University. Ms. Edin discussed their research on unwed fathers, fatherhood, and relationship formation. Their presentation featured personal accounts from fathers and their experiences and relationships with their own children and discussed future strategies on how to improve father involvement in a child’s life and promote healthy relationship formation.

The Administration for Children and Families' Office of Family Assistance (OFA) hosted the "Strategies to Assist Noncustodial Parents in Improving Economic Well-Being" webinar. This webinar showcased several programs making headway in this area. TANF programs and their safety-net partners increasingly understand the importance of engaging noncustodial parents while also holding them accountable for the economic and social growth of their children. Barriers such as unemployment, underemployment, or incarceration can hinder noncustodial parents from providing for their children even when many want to do so. The Webinar featured three programs.

1. North Dakota PRIDE is a partnership between North Dakota's Department of Human Services, Job Service North Dakota, the Child Support Enforcement Division, and eight judicial district courts throughout the state. The program refers parents with unpaid child support obligations to Job Service North Dakota for employment support.

2. Kansas Child Support Savings Initiative is a partnership between Kansas Child Support Services and the state Treasurer's Office to empower noncustodial parents to save money for their children's education. Noncustodial parents open 529 savings accounts for their children and for every dollar they put into the account, the State reduces their child support arrears by two dollars.

3. Couples Advancing Together is a program of the Center for Urban Families in Baltimore, Maryland that provides employment development, case management services, and healthy relationship skills training to couples with children who currently receive public benefits through the Maryland Department of Social Services. Completion of the Couples Advancing Together program qualifies participants for a 10% reduction in any child support arrears they owe to the State of Maryland, which is helpful to those who are noncustodial parents to children outside their primary family unit.

The Pew Research Center outlines the characteristics of U.S. fathers who lived with their children younger than 18 in 2012 and did not work outside the home. The report juxtaposes this information with counterparts in earlier years and includes Census data about this population since 1989. Authors of the report also compare the characteristics of stay-at-home fathers with fathers who work for pay outside the home, as well as with stay-at-home mothers.

The Administration for Children and Families released a resource guide for healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood grantees that allows users to search curricula by a variety of facets including: implementation characteristics, targeted audience, and topics covered. Users are able to compare curricula in a table to determine which information will best suit their needs.

The Institute for Research on Poverty released a fact sheet that outlines the challenges faced by young dads in the United States. The fact sheet explores educational background, marriage rates, and overall rates related to access to resources.

This report compiles and analyzes information from seven father self-sufficiency/employment programs that were rigorously evaluated. Common implementation themes emerged, including: partnering with job placement and other agencies to serve low-income fathers; enabling vocational specialists to assist fathers on a one-to-one basis; offering a comprehensive range of services to help fathers overcome self-sufficiency barriers; and using incentives to recruit fathers.

This study reviews results of a pilot employment program in New York, a part of the Strengthening Families Through Stronger Fathers Initiative. The program provided employment-oriented services, fatherhood/parenting workshops, case management, and other support services to nearly 4,000 parents behind in their child support in four New York communities. The evaluation shows that these programs successfully helped participants find work and increase their earnings.

This paper documents an approach, used in Connecticut, for outreaching, connecting, and serving low-income, ethnically diverse, non-custodial fathers. The approach focuses on engaging men "where they are" by building their strengths and addressing their needs and helping fathers become positive and healthy role models by increasing their attachment to their children and families. The approach focuses on skill development in several areas, including education, economic stability, family/child support, and mental and physical health.

The National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse (NRFC) released a series of public service announcement (PSA) video clips that are meant to inspire dads throughout the country to get more involved in their children's lives. The NRFC partnered with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) superstars to be featured in these clips.