F O C U S
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MAR/APR 2000

OPM's Third Annual Conference
on Fatherhood

Multiple Initiatives Help Men to be Better Fathers

United Fatherhood:
Making the Difference in Children’s Development, a three-hour program, took place on March 29, 2000, at the Office of Personnel Management.

The first presentation, "Taking a United Step Towards Fatherhood," was given by Preston Garrison, Executive Director, National Practitioners Network for Fathers and Families (NPNFF). This not-for-profit, member-driven networking organization is committed to strengthening support for "fragile families" — low-income, never married parents and their children.

NPNFF is committed to enhancing the involvement of fathers by fostering communication, professional development, and education. NPNFF is also working to place fatherhood issues on the agendas of national  organizations that have traditionally served women, children, and families, but may not have focused on father involvement.

This young and still developing field is not yet unified, commented Mr. Garrison. He described disagreement among the factions on many approaches to helping two-parent families form or stay together. Current antipoverty and child support enforcement policies, he believes, drive fathers away and don’t encourage poor families to stay together. Mr. Garrison commended positive trends introduced by community-based fatherhood programs to promote team parenting models, emphasis on job readiness, and employability skills training.

"A system that considers the family unit (whatever it looks like) as a whole," he said, "can provide the kind of comprehensive and integrated array of services needed to provide secure climates in which children can thrive."

The next two presenters addressed research on fatherhood. Dr. Tamara Halle, a developmental psychologist at Child Trends, a nonprofit research organization dedicated  to studying children and families through research, data collection and analyses, presented  "What Does the Research Say About Father Involvement?"

Dr. Halle brought to light research that defined a father’s "positive involvement" as more than physical presence and financial contribution. Some critical factors affecting father involvement were identified: