The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation commissioned this brief, which describes the Responsible Fatherhood, Marriage and Family Strengthening Grants for Incarcerated and Re-entering Fathers and their Partners (MFS-IP). Authors provide an overview of the implementation and impact evaluation of this initiative on families around the country.

This issue brief is from the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse and provides an overview of “what works” in fatherhood programs. Researchers outline evaluation procedures for such programs, as only rigorous evaluations of programs can provide evidence of whether programs have the positive outcomes for families. This issue brief outlines ten lessons learned from evaluated fatherhood programs.

This paper was published through the California Center for Population Research, and researchers conducted qualitative analysis to compare non-married and married fathers’ expectations of their child care responsibilities soon after their child’s birth. As a subset of the national Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, 75 men were interviewed at the hospital following the birth of their child. Results showed differences between non-married and married fathers regarding father involvement, child care activities, and barriers to child care.

The number of children born to unmarried parents has been steadily increasing. In 2005, 37 percent of children were born to unmarried parents. Responding to these trends, the Federal government implemented the Healthy Marriage Initiative. This brief, from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, provides information on the relationship dynamics of unmarried couples who recently had a child, which is the target population form many healthy marriage programs.

From the Bendheim-Thoman Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, Princeton University, this Fragile Families Research Brief summarizes the results of papers that use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to estimate the effect of incarceration on the wages and employment for poor young fathers. Employment and stable wages can play an important role in helping ex-prisoners reenter into their communities and reduce recidivism into criminal behavior.

The Urban Institute conducted this evaluation of the Partners of Fragile Families (PFF) project. The PFF demonstration was funded from 2000 to 2003 by the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) and the Ford Foundation in nine states across the country. This report provides case study data from eight unmarried, low-income fathers who participated in the demonstration. Among the key outcomes, it was found that the men generally lacked a strong concept of the meaning of fatherhood.

From the Journal of Contemporary Social Services, this newsletter includes a variety of relevant topics for low-income families. The feature topic of this issue is fathering and fatherhood, and authors also include articles on an upcoming resource entitled “Working but Poor.”

This research brief from Child Trends offers an overview of a growing body of research on men’s pregnancy intentions. New research suggests that men’s pregnancy intentions and prenatal behaviors may have implications for fathers’ later involvement with their children. Utilizing data from the 9-month Resident Father Survey of the 2001 Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), authors provide information on the effects of prenatal intentions and behaviors.

This report from the Office of Research, Planning, and Evaluation provides a conceptual framework for healthy marriage education intervention with low-income married step-couples based on research and practice lessons. Authors provide background data on divorce and remarriage, information on the characteristics of stepfamilies and trends in stepfamily prevalence, research findings on stepfamily dynamics, the quality of relationships among stepfamily couples and outcomes for children, and information learned from practitioners.

This fact sheet, from the National Quality Improvement Center on Non-Residential Fathers, provides information on the “What about the Dads?” study. This study included research on 1,958 children who were removed from the home where the father did not reside. By engaging the fathers of children in foster care, child and father relationships can be improved, and children can gain access to additional benefits.