Information about programs designed to help low-income fathers obtain the skills they need to provide financial and emotional support for their children.
ACF is pleased to announce the availability of the latest report from the Welfare Peer Technical Assistance Network. This report describes the lessons learned from the ACF/OFA Welfare Peer TA Network workshop, “Uniting Incarcerate Parents and Their Families.” The workshop was held in Orlando and in Tamoka prison in Daytona Beach, Florida, on May 21-22, 2002. Additional Information of interest may be found on the Welfare Peer TA Network web site.
The Welfare Peer TA Network thanks Linda Dilworth, Director of Economic Self-Sufficiency, Children and Families, Greg Campbell and Region IV staff and Ike and Mickey Griffin, the Kairos Director and Director of Programming for the Kairos Horizon Communities Program for all of their assistance and support. For further information contact John Horejsi, Federal Project Officer at (202) 401-5031.
HHS has a continuing partnership with the private-sector initiative, Partners for Fragile Families (PFF). This initiative is aimed at helping fathers work with the mothers of their children in sharing the legal, financial, and emotional responsibilities of parenthood. In March 2000, HHS approved ten state waivers for the Partners for Fragile Families Demonstration projects. Working at the community level with non-profit and faith-based partners to provide employment, health, and social services, these projects will test new approaches to involving young fathers with their children and to helping mothers and fathers build stronger parenting partnerships. Projects sites are located in California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
The Office of Child Support Enforcement has funded Fatherhood Development Workshops on effective practices for working with young unemployed and underemployed fathers; the development of a manual for workers to use in helping low-income fathers learn to interact more effectively with the child support enforcement system; and a peer learning college for child support enforcement experts to identify systemic barriers these young fathers face in becoming responsible fathers.
In addition, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) is supporting a 20-city, multi-year study of “fragile families”. This study, funded through a private/public partnership, will assess the effects of father involvement on child well-being, including fathers who live apart from their children on a permanent or intermittent basis. Preliminary data from several sites indicates that 44 percent of never-married fathers are living with their partners when their baby is born, that over 80 percent of fathers are providing financial assistance to the child’s mother during pregnancy, and that over 90 percent of mothers want the father to be involved in the child’s life.
Sites in seven states participated in Parents’ Fair Share (PFS), a demonstration project that provided employment-related training, parenting education, peer group support, and mediation services to encourage low-income fathers to be more involved with their children and increase their payment of child support. Current available reports:
Eight states (California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Maryland, Missouri, New Hampshire, Washington, and Wisconsin) have received Responsible Fatherhood demonstration grants or waivers through the Office of Child Support Enforcement to allow them to test comprehensive approaches to encourage more responsible fathering by non-custodial parents. Each state project is different but they all provide a range of needed services such as job search and training, access and visitation, social services or referral, case management and child support. The initial implementation report, OCSE Responsible Fatherhood Programs: Early Implementation Lessons, is available on line. A limited number of printed copies are available. For a single copy of the report send a fax labeled “Fatherhood Report” to 202-690-5514, identifying the name of the report you are requesting and provide your name and/or organization and complete mailing address.
Currently, HHS is working closely with the Department of Labor to implement the Welfare-to-Work program, which provides grants to states and communities to move long-term welfare recipients and certain non-custodial parents of children on welfare into lasting, unsubsidized employment. Amendments to WtW passed last year will make it easier to identify fathers eligible for services. The Administration for Children and Families and the Employment and Training Administration in the Department of Labor have issued a joint guidance to State Child Support Enforcement agencies, State TANF agencies and Welfare-to-Work grantees on strategies to enhance the recruitment, referral, eligibility determination, and provision of services to non-custodial parents under the welfare-to-work program.
WtW grants represent a new and valuable source of funding for local work-focused services to noncustodial parents (NCPs). The U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, working with the Department of Labor, sponsored a study of 11 selected WtW grantees with an NCP focus to identify how some WtW grantees have designed and implemented programs that address the employment and other service needs of NCPs. The study report, Serving Noncustodial Parents: A Descriptive Study of Welfare-to-Work Programs, prepared by The Urban Institute and Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., documents a variety of recruitment strategies and service approaches being implemented and highlights key issues that must be addressed to serve this population. [The report is also available in PDF format.] A limited number of printed copies of the report are available. For copies, send a fax labeled “Serving Noncustodial Parents” to 202-690-5514, identifying the name of the report you are requesting and provide your name and/or organization and complete mailing address.
A special Welfare-to-Work (WtW) evaluation report, Giving Noncustodial Parents Options: Employment and Child Support Outcomes of the SHARE Program, was released in February 2003. Support Has A Rewarding Effect (SHARE), was an initiative operated with WtW grant support in three counties in the state of Washington. SHARE offered three options NCPs whose minor, dependent children were receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and who were in arrears on their support obligations: (1) start paying support, (2) enroll in a WtW program, or (3) face possible incarceration. As a program, SHARE involved collaboration among the welfare and workforce investment systems, child support enforcement agency, and employment and training providers. The SHARE approach emphasized close monitoring of child support compliance and strove to limit the burden of child support obligations on the NCPs, so these did not become a disincentive to work. In general, the program found NCP’s a hard-to reach-population and many NCPs eligible for the program never learned about SHARE because staff could not locate them, and some were incarcerated or had moved. The employment rate, earnings, and child support payments among all NCPs referred to SHARE increased. Factors other than SHARE probably played some role in the outcomes observed. However, differences in key outcomes for NCPs who took different paths through the initiative suggest that all or some of SHARE’s components — service of a summons, the threat of incarceration, the possibility of renegotiating obligations and arrears, WtW services, and ongoing compliance monitoring — may have played a role in the observed improvements for NCPs who did engage in the initiative.
See also: Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration web site, with its link to Welfare-to-Work web pages.
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Last updated March 1, 2004
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