Meeting the Challenge:
What The Federal Government Can Do To Support Responsible Fatherhood Efforts

Chapter 1
Introduction

[ Main Page of Report ]

Contents

• Why Develop a Guidance to Help Support Responsible Fatherhood Programs at the Community Level?
• Many Different Fathers and Families, Many Different Needs
• Responsible Fatherhood Efforts Can be Funded by Many Federal Agencies
• Research Findings Support the Importance of Responsible Fatherhood Efforts
• Knowledge Creates a Strong Foundation for Public/Private Partnerships
• Organization of This Guidance

• Endnotes

Why Develop a Guidance to Help Support Responsible Fatherhood Programs at the Community Level?

Throughout the Clinton-Gore Administration, the President and Vice-President have worked hard to promote responsible and engaged fatherhood. Recognizing that children's lives — from child development to academic achievement to economic security-are affected by the involvement of their fathers, the Clinton-Gore has promoted fatherhood initiatives in agencies throughout the federal government. On June 17, 2000 President Clinton directed six Federal agencies, the Departments of Agriculture, Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Justice and Labor, to work together to develop a guidance for organizations and individuals on Federal resources and opportunities for promoting responsible fatherhood. The executive memorandum identified the types of information to be included and instructed the Departments to make the guidance available through their websites and as a printed document (Box 1-A: Executive Memorandum). The six agencies have worked together to identify resources for program development and funding and to provide information about fatherhood activities sponsored by both government and non-government entities that can be used to strengthen the many roles of fathers.

In the future, funding designated specifically for fatherhood programs may be available. President Clinton's FY 2001 budget proposed the Fathers Work, Families Win program, that would have provided $255 million to support noncustodial parents and working families, as well as incentives to States to give more child support payments directly to families. The House of Representatives, with overwhelming bi-partisan support, also passed H.R. 4678, the Child Support Distribution Act of 2000 in the 106^th Congress legislation that would have provided $140 million for funding fatherhood programsin addition to ensuring that more child support went directly to families. While the 106^th Congress did not enact this legislation, support for funding to develop and implement fatherhood programs is likely to continue. However, even if fatherhood legislation is passed, it is not likely to provide funding for all the fatherhood activities that are under development in communities and States. Communities and organizations that want to promote fatherhood efforts need to be aware of the existing resources that could potentially fund such programs.

This guidance focuses on what can be done right now under existing laws and policies and the funding streams and program development resources that are currently in place. With or without targeted funding for fatherhood, it is crucial that fatherhood programs begin to be considered as part of the service systems that serve to promote child health, well-being and educational achievement, and that support and strengthen families and communities. This guidance will help identify the resources currently available for program design and development, and the funding streams that potentially can support these efforts.

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Many Different Fathers and Families, Many Different Needs

Fathers have many different roles in the lives of their children. Like mothers, their roles include being financial provider, caregiver, nurturer, cook, tutor, coach, chauffeur, and much, much more. Many fathers are actively involved in the lives of their children, other fathers are seeking ways to become more involved, and some fathers are not involved at all. Fathers also live in many different types of household arrangements. Many live with their children and their children's mother, others live apart from some or all of their children, and still others are the primary custodial parent for their children. Government efforts to support fatherhood are not limited to fathers in only one type of living arrangement or family situation, but help support current fathers, potential fathers, and men who step in to provide father-like support.⁽¹⁾

As communities consider how to support strengthening the roles of fathers in families and in their children's lives, they will need to consider which fathers they want to work with and what kinds of programs or activities they want to develop. Some of the basic facts about fathers and their diverse family situations are explored in further detail in this section.

Most fathers live with some or all of their children. The majority of children live in two parent families with their biological, adoptive or step father, and most fathers start their fatherhood experience while living with their child and their child's mother. Of all the families with children under age 18, 72 percent are married or cohabiting couple families.⁽²⁾ However, there is growing evidence that fathers' engagement, not just presence, is an important contributor to their children's well-being.⁽³⁾ This means that some of the most important types of fatherhood programs communities can undertake are programs that help parents balance work and family life, improve parenting skills, increase fathers' participation in activities that promote child health and educational achievement, and strengthen supports for working families and marriage.

Nonresident⁽⁴⁾ fathers are a heterogenous group. There are nonresident fathers from all racial and ethnic groups (58 percent white, 27 percent black and 13 percent Hispanic); from all income categories (30 percent with income below $10,000, 17 percent with income above $40,000); with different educational levels (25 percent with no high school diploma or GED, 30 percent with some college); and all age groups (11 percent under age 24, 54 percent over age 35).⁽⁵⁾ A father may not be living with his children because of divorce, marital separation, or the break-up of a non-marital union. Many nonresident fathers are no longer closely involved with their child's mother, but there is a group of parents who do not live together but are a nonresidential fragile family unit⁽⁶⁾. Some nonresident fathers (and their former partners) need help working out issues of how to parent together, now that their marriage or relationship has ended, other nonresident fathers are trying to strengthen their ties to their child's mother in the hopes of becoming a residential family unit. Payment of child support is one of the obligations associated with being a nonresident parent. Slightly less than 60 percent of nonresident fathers have a child support agreement that covers payment of child support. Of those with an agreement, slightly more than two-thirds, pay some or all of what is due.⁽⁷⁾ While some nonresident fathers need help understanding the importance of their financial contributions to their children's well-being, other nonresident fathers want to contribute financially, but need help in getting and keeping jobs.

Some fathers live in step-parent families, but there are few supports for these families. Of all the children living with two parents, almost ten percent live with a step parent, most often their biological mother and a stepfather.⁽⁸⁾ Research on step-parent families indicates that attention needs to be given to the complex set of issues that arise for these blended families.⁽⁹⁾ Teachers and early childhood educators as well as health providers and others who care for children, need to develop strategies that promote the appropriate inclusion of all the important adults in a child's life: mother, father, step-parent, grandparent, and, as appropriate, other extended family members.

Most never-married fathers who do not live with their children are involved with them on a regular basis when they are infants and toddlers. New research has shown that many never-married fathers are very involved with their partners and their children, especially when the children are still young. In the Fragile Family and Child Well-Being Study, 75 percent of unmarried fathers were at the hospital when their child was born or came to visit. Eighty percent of mothers reported that the father provided financial help during pregnancy and virtually all the fathers (and 93 percent of the mothers) indicated they wanted to be involved in raising their children. However, over time these relationships rupture and the fathers become less involved. The National Survey of America's Families indicates that 35 percent of poor children under two years of age with unmarried parents live with their mother but have a highly involved, highly committed father. But for children ages 2-3 living with their mothers, only 21 percent have highly involved unmarried nonresident fathers, and by the time children are eight years old, only thirteen percent have highly involved unmarried nonresident fathers. Some researchers have suggested that the time to reach out to these families is when they are still involved, rather than to wait until the relationship between the parents has disintegrated.⁽¹⁰⁾

The proportion of single father households has been increasing. Between 1980 and 1999, the proportion of children living in a single parent household with their father increased from 10 percent to15 percent of single parent households. Single father households are more common among white non-Hispanic single parent households (20 percent), than Hispanic (16 percent), or black (7 percent) households. It is also more common for children ages 15 to 17 to live within a single father household (15 percent), than for children ages 5-14 (11 percent) or ages 1-4 (5 percent).⁽¹¹⁾

Teen fathers face many of the same difficult choices as teen mothers. Teen fathers are not as common as teen mothers, but most of the teen and young adult men, who become fathers prematurely, have the same characteristics as many unmarried teen moms. They are often high-school dropouts or high school graduates with low-levels of reading and math skills, disproportionally minorities, often alienated from their own families and with few external support systems except for peers who have the same educational and social deficits as they do.⁽¹²⁾

Over half of the men in prison report having at least one dependent child. In a new report issued by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in August, 2000, about 56 percent of men reported having a child under the age of 18. BJS estimates that the 668,000 men in State and Federal prisons are fathers of about 1.4 million minor children. Forty-four percent of these men report living with their children prior to incarceration. Two thirds of all incarcerated fathers report monthly contact with their children via phone, mail, or personal visits. In addition to parenting from prison, re-entry into family life is also an issue as almost 90 percent of fathers expect to be released from prison before their youngest child turns age18.⁽¹³⁾

Grandfathers, as well as grandmothers, increasingly find themselves raising their children's children. About 1.4 million grandfathers have their dependent grandchildren living in their household, and an additional 340,000 grandfathers live in the households of their adult children and grandchildren. Many of these grandfathers are the residential male role model for the children living in the household. Grandfathers living with their co-resident grandchildren are more likely to be white (60 percent), than black (16 percent) or Hispanic (20 percent); to be under age 65 (72 percent); to have at least a high school education (60 percent); and to have worked full or part time in the previous year (64 percent). These grandfathers, as "fathers", face many of the same issues as any parent, from obtaining health insurance coverage to balancing work and family life; but, they also have a less well-defined and supported legal, social and emotional status.⁽¹⁴⁾

Male teenagers are reporting delaying having sexual intercourse, but more efforts need to be focused on male reproductive health. For the past several decades most of the attention on preventing teenage pregnancy has focused on developing programs to delay and reduce sexual activity of teenage girls, with very little focus on trying to reduce the onset and level of teenage boys' sexual activity.⁽¹⁵⁾ But despite the general lack of national efforts to address sexual and reproductive health issues with teen males, there has been a decrease during the 1990s in the proportion of teen males in high school that reported ever having sexual intercourse. This decrease from 57.4 percent to 48.9 percent was the first recorded decline in the level of teenage boys' sexual behavior. Such findings should provide communities and States with confidence that the sexual behavior of both teen boys and girls can be changed and underscore the importance of making sure that programs to prevent premature parenthood address the needs and concerns of adolescent boys as well as adolescent girls.⁽¹⁶⁾

Some fathers are "missing" from our national data collection efforts. Much of the information about fathers and their relationship with their children comes from national survey data, such as the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey and the Survey of Income and Program Participation. It is estimated that national surveys may only capture between 70 and 80 percent of all information on fathers for a variety of reasons. One reason is that this data is usually collected from individuals who live in households. This means that men who live in group quarters, such as military barracks or prisons, are not interviewed. As stated earlier, over half the men in prison report having at least one minor child. Second, the Census bureau has documented that there is an undercount of young adult, unmarried, minority males. These men don't get included in the census counts in part because they often are loosely attached to any household, often not really residing with parents, friends, or partners on a perceived permanent basis. Because they are not counted, survey results are affected that use census data to construct estimates of the total population. About seventy percent of the missing men problem is estimated to result from these two "counting" problems. About 30 percent of the missing men problem in national surveys comes from under-reporting by men, or the person answering the questions on behalf of the men (proxy respondent) about the existence of children living elsewhere. Some studies have tried to identify who these men are, but often there is not enough information collected to make such estimates. Because so many men are not part of national surveys, it is harder to tell the "father" story than the "mother" story. This missing information on some fathers may result in researchers and policy makers making inaccurate assumptions about men's involvement in their children's lives.⁽¹⁷⁾

In sum, keeping fathers connected to their children and increasing fathers' involvement in the lives of their children poses significant challenges for our nation. High rates of divorce, non-marital child bearing, and the financial and emotional stresses of poverty increase the risk that fathers will be less involved in their children's lives. As more families have two parents working outside the home, fathers need support in the work place to find ways to balance work and family obligations and provide children with the level of child-parent involvement and supervision needed for their healthy growth and development. While government cannot make good fathers, it can support efforts to help men become the best fathers they can be.

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Responsible Fatherhood Efforts Can be Funded by Many Federal Agencies

This guidance recognizes that all of the Federal government share in the responsibility for ensuring that parents, fathers as well as mothers, have the opportunities and skills needed to raise healthy and competent children, to provide for their families emotionally and financially, and to contribute to the establishment of safe and strong communities. As used in this guide, a program that supports responsible fatherhood efforts can be any program that works with men, or with men and their partners, to enhance their skills and competencies to provide emotional, social and financial support for the children in their lives. This definition also include programs that can help fathers provide for the physical needs of their children, and help men prevent premature fatherhood. All six of the Federal agencies asked by the President to collaborate on developing this guidance can help support responsible fatherhood efforts through their information and funding resources. Examples of ways each Department supports responsible fatherhood include:

Department of Agriculture: The Food Stamp Program provides resources to help low-income families meet their nutritional requirements. These resources are available to both single and two-parent low income households. Additionally, if a low-income father supports children in two households, the amount of child support paid to support children living elsewhere is subtracted from the household income in determining the food stamp allotment for the father's resident family.

Department of Education: Through the Partnership for Family Involvement in Education (PFIE), mothers and fathers have increased opportunities to be more involved in their children's learning at school and at home and to use family-school-community partnerships to strengthen schools and improve student achievement. With more than 7,100 partnership organizations, PFIE partners are supporting special summer and school year reading programs, promoting college attendance through mentoring and tutoring programs, and helping keep children safe through the development of after school programs.

Department of Health and Human Services: The Access and Visitation grants enable States to create and maintain programs that facilitate the access that nonresident parents have to their children, and support them in appropriate efforts to be involved in their children's lives. Among other things, these grants may be used for parent education, for actions to improve the parenting partnership between the custodial and noncustodial parents, for mediation, and for visitation enforcement (including monitoring, supervision and neutral drop-off and pick-up).

Department of Housing and Urban Development: HOPE VI grants are used primarily for capital costs, however, each HOPE VI Revitalization community must implement a program of community and supportive services designed to promote upward mobility, independence, and improved quality of life for residents of the targeted public housing development. The program can include many services appropriate for fathers, such as: substance/alcohol abuse treatment and counseling; health care services; domestic violence prevention; transportation in aid of employment; life skills courses on topics such as parenting and budgeting; child care; employment training and counseling; self-empowerment training; computer skills training; education; mentoring; and business development training.

The Department of Justice: In the Reentry Partnership Initiative (RPI), the National Institute of Justice and the Corrections Program Office in partnership with the Executive Office of Weed and Seed and the Office of Community Oriented Policing, have launched an eight site demonstration effort to assist communities in addressing challenges presented by offenders entering the community after incarceration with little or no supervision, accountability, or resource investment. The goals include enhancing public safety, cost conscious accountability, and offender productivity. A substantial number of inmates being released are nonresident fathers, and therefore part of the RPI efforts include helping offenders successfully reconnect with their children and ensuring that returning offenders have the life skills, parenting, and other skills to meet their children's financial and emotional needs.

The Department of Labor: The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA) provides for a consolidated workforce development system that is to be consumer focused, and through quality services helps Americans access the information and tools they need to manage their careers, and helps U.S. companies find skilled workers. WIA requires that services be delivered through a system of One Stop Centers where multiple agencies and programs are co-located and integrated in design. WIA services are funded in three streams based on customers: adult services, dislocated worker services, and youth services. There is a wide variety of opportunities for fathers, both employed and unemployed, to access job related services through a One-Stop Center. Many services are available to the general public at no cost, including Internet access to job information and other tools that DOL has prepared for job seekers and employers, and the use of printers, fax machines, telephones, etc. Low-income fathers may qualify for more intensive services, such as career counseling and training.

In defining what government activities should be considered as supporting responsible fatherhood efforts, the working group developing this guidance considered any funds, resources or services that could be used to: 1) prevent premature fatherhood; 2) provide employment and training activities, including readiness to work; 3) enhance parenting skills and parent-child relationships, including paternity establishment, access and visitation, involvement in learning and educational activities, and participation in seeking and obtaining care for children's health and mental health needs; 4) promote marriage and team parenting; 5) reduce family violence, including treatment for battered and batterers; 6) obtain treatment for health, mental health, and substance abuse problems; 7) facilitate through counseling, mentoring, peer support, or other means, fathers' ability to fulfill their roles as nurturers, educators, and providers for their children, families and communities; and/or 8) sustain fathers' efforts to care for their families (e.g., food stamps, public housing). What is critical for communities to remember is that there are many resources that can be used to support responsible fatherhood programs, but there are no legislative mandates that must be used for this purpose. Decision makers at the local, State or Federal level will need to be convinced that the proposed fatherhood program is consistent with any legislative mandates, and that fatherhood programs are a wise investment of funding resources for improving the well-being of children, families and communities.

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Research Findings Support the Importance of Responsible Fatherhood Efforts⁽¹⁸⁾

In general, research shows that children benefit when they have positive relationships with their fathers, as well as with their mothers. ⁽¹⁹⁾ Most of these findings on positive effects of fathers involvement come from studies of two parent families. Information of the effects of non-custodial parents involvement with their children is less well documented, in part because involvement is often defined as "contact" with little data collection of the nature or quality of that contact.⁽²⁰⁾ Research findings also indicate that father absence affects outcomes for children, in terms of schooling, labor force participation, and non-martial childbearing. These findings hold when income is taken into account, so the negative effects of father absence are not limited to those created by the reduction of family income.⁽²¹⁾

Father involvement is important even for very young children. Good fathering during infancy and early childhood contributes to the development of emotional security, curiosity, and math and verbal skills. Infants form attachments with their fathers and mothers at about the same point in time during their first year of life, and the attachment with fathers is seen as providing the child with additional resources for building social competence. ⁽²²⁾

Higher levels of involvement by fathers in activities with their children, such as eating meals together, going on outings, and helping with homework, are associated with fewer behavior problems, higher levels of sociability, and a higher level of school performance among children and adolescents.⁽²³⁾

Involvement by fathers in children's schooling, such as volunteering at school and attending school meetings, parent-teacher conferences and class events, is associated with higher grades, greater school enjoyment, and lower chances of suspension or expulsion from school. Single fathers respond very much like single mothers in terms of participation in school events, exceeding the involvement of fathers who reside in two parent families. Even modest involvement in school activities by single fathers increases the odds that their children will get mostly As and decreases the odds that their children will be suspended or expelled. ⁽²⁴⁾

The father-child relationship affects daughters as well as sons. Girls who live with both their mother and father do better academically. In addition, they are less likely to engage in early sexual involvement, alcohol or drugs. Positive father involvement and marital quality appear to affect sons and daughters differently, especially in the adolescent years, but the effect of involvement and absence are discernable for both.⁽²⁵⁾

Although negative peer influence is the major reason kids use drugs, research suggests that positive family influence is the main reason kids do not use drugs. Both boys and girls have reduced risk of drug and alcohol use if their fathers are involved in their lives.⁽²⁶⁾

The risk of incarceration is increased when children do not have a father as a positive role model in their lives.⁽²⁷⁾ Strengthening families is a prevention measure for reducing crime and subsequent incarceration.

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Knowledge Creates a Strong Foundation for Public/Private Partnerships

Communities need to build strong public/private partnerships to support fatherhood. For that to be possible, all of the potential partners need to have information on what has been tried and how well it worked, and what resources are available and how they are being used. Experts need to be identified that can provide specific advice about program development and access to resources. State and local government policy makers and program managers need to know what kinds of programs are permissible under their various funding authorities. Private sector groups, including business, foundations, faith-based organizations, and employment and social service providers, need to understand how promoting fatherhood is related to the other work they do to support families and children and to build strong communities. The more everyone knows about fatherhood efforts, the more likely it is for them to design the right program in their communities to help the fathers become more involved in the lives of their children.

At the national level there have been many opportunities for public and private partners to come together and learn from each other about responsible fatherhood efforts. In 1994 Vice-President Gore focused on the Role of Men in Children's Lives at his Family Re-Union 3 Conference in Nashville, Tennessee. Program practitioners, community leaders, local, State and Federal policy makers, foundations, and family researchers met together to consider how the roles of men in children's lives could be strengthened. In May 1996, Federal agencies came together in a conference hosted by Vice President Gore, and jointly sponsored by the Domestic Policy Council, the National Partnership to Reinvent Government, and the Departments of Health and Human Services and Education, to share lessons learned and innovative ideas involving fathers. Many of the speakers at the conference were individuals from the private sector sharing their insights about what needs to be done and what the Federal government could do. In June 1998, the report, Nurturing Fatherhood: Improving Data and Research on Male Fertility, Family Formation and Fatherhood, issued by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics was released. This report, the result of a collaboration among government, foundation, academic and nonprofit researcher and policymakers, identified what we know about fatherhood and what additional government research could be undertaken to increase our understanding of how fathering and family structure affect children and adults.

Government sponsored conferences like the Welfare-to-Work Beyond 2000 National Conference on October 23-25, 2000 in Phoenix, Arizona brought together the public and private sector to discuss how to improve services to noncustodial parents in the Welfare-to-Work program. Likewise, private sector conferences like the International Fatherhood Conference 2000 in New York, New York (May, 2000) sponsored by the National Center for Strategic Nonprofit Planning and Community Leadership (NPCL), the Third National Summit on Fatherhood in Washington, D.C. (June, 2000) sponsored by the National Fatherhood Initiative, and the North American Conference on Fathers Behind Bars and on the Street in Durham, North Carolina (September 2000) sponsored by the Family and Corrections Network (FCN) and the National Practitioners Network for Fathers and Families (NPNFF) explored with public and private sector participants the practice, research and policy issues that impact on fathers who live in the community, and fathers who are incarcerated. These kinds of events and activities have helped Federal agency staff and advocates from the private sector understand what can be done under existing authorities and with existing resources.

Some States and communities have already engaged in the process of undertaking public/private partnerships to support responsible fatherhood efforts and they want to do more. Other States and communities are just beginning to explore what they can do to support responsible fatherhood efforts. It is intended that this guidance will help stimulate ideas, discussions, and actions about how to develop and sustain responsible fatherhood efforts.

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Organization of this Guidance

This guidance is divided into six chapters. This first chapter discusses the purpose of the guidance and ways in which the Federal government can do more to support responsible fatherhood efforts. Chapter two, Lessons from the Field, outlines the predominant types of fatherhood programs currently in operation around the country, and reviews some of the key lessons learned by these programs, especially demonstration projects where an evaluation has been completed. Chapter three, Building Partnerships, discusses the value of forming partnerships with existing organizations and programs, gives examples of fatherhood projects that have done so with success, and identifies some Federal programs that fund projects that might be especially apt prospects for partnerships. Chapter four, How Federal Policies Affect Fathers, answers questions in areas where Federal policy may be confusing or misunderstood so that both fathers and organizations at the local level and State and local government agencies will have accurate policy information. Chapter five, Getting Help, provides leads to sources of information and assistance, both among the six Federal Departments that are producing this document, and among private organizations as well. Chapter six, Program Funding, describes a number of Federal programs that are funded directly or indirectly through States may be appropriate sources of funding for responsible fatherhood projects. Finally, this document concludes with two appendices. Appendix A, includes lists of Regional Federal staff and Appendix B includes State and local government agencies and contacts that may be helpful in networking, as well as project development.

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Endnotes

1. While fathers, like mothers, remain important to their children even after their children are adults and on their own, this report focuses primarily on fathering and dependent children, that is children who are under age 19. Parents often provide important financial support and guidance as children transition into adulthood through the late teens and early 20's, and some aspects of this important role are included, but the legal responsibilities of parenthood become blurred after children reach the age of legal adulthood generally viewed as age 18 or after completion of high school.

2. Lugaila, Terry, (1998), Marital Status and Living Arrangements: March 1998 (Update), Current Population Reports, P20-514, Washington, D.C.:U.S.Bureau of the Census. Also available on the Census webpage at: http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/ms-la.html.

3. Lamb, Michael E., (1997). The Role of Fathers in Child Development. New York:John Wiley and Sons.

4. In this document the terms nonresident and noncustodial father are used interchangeably. Both are used to identify fathers who do not live with their children most or all of the time.

5. Wheaton, Laura, (2000), Nonresident Fathers to What Extent Do They Have Access to Employment Based Health Care Coverage, Washington D.C.: Urban Institute-under contract with the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Department of Health and Human Services, and Sorensen, Elaine and Laura Wheaton, 2000, Income and Demographic Characteristics of Nonresident Fathers in 1993, Washington D.C.: Urban Institute-under contract with the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Department of Health and Human Services.

6. A fragile family consists of poor children born outside of marriage whose two natural parents are working together to raise them, either by living together or frequent visitation. See Mincy, Ronald B., and Hillard Pouncy. (1997) Delivering Dads: Paternalism, Child Support Enforcement, and Fragile Families. In The New Paternalism, edited by Lawrence M. Mead. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press

7. Grall, Timothy, (2000), Child Support for Mothers and Fathers, 1997, Current Population Reports, P60-212, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau.

8. A comparison of unpublished data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation , 1996, Wave 2 provided by the U.S. Census Bureau and an earlier Census Bureau publication , The Diverse Living Arrangements of Children: Summer 1991, Household Economic Studies (P70-38), indicates that the proportion of children in stepparent families stayed substantially the same (ten percent) from 1991 through 1996.

9. McLanahan, Sara, and Gary Sandefur, (1994), Growing Up with a Single parent: What Hurts, What Helps,

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, and Booth, Alan, and Judy Dunn, Eds., (1994), Stepfamilies: Who Benefits? Who Does Not?, Hillsdale:Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

10. Sorensen, Elaine, Ronald Mincy, and Ariel Halpern, (2000), Redirecting Welfare Policy Toward Building Strong Families, Number 3 in Series, "Strengthening Families", Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute, unpublished tabulations by Elaine Sorensen from the National Survey of America's Families, and information from various research briefs and reports from the Fragile Family and Child Well-Being Study. See Dispelling Myths About Unmarried Fathers, Fragile Family Research Brief #1, May 2000 and Johnson, Waldo, 2000, The Determinants of Parental Involvement Among Unwed Fathers, Working Paper 00-19-FF. Reports also available at: http://www.crcw.princeton.edu/fragilefamilies/index.htm.

11. Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, (2000), America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being 2000, Table ECON2, Washington, D.C.:GPO. Report and Tables also available at: http://childstats.gov.

12. Sawhill, Isabel and John Hutchins, (2000), Ready Resources: Investing in Teen Pregnancy Prevention Funds, Washington, D.C.: The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy and Lerman, Robert and Theodora Ooms (Eds.), 1993, Young Unwed Fathers, Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

13. Mumola, Christopher, (2000), Incarcerated Parents and Their Children, Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report (NCJ 182335), Washington, D.C.: US Department of Justice, and special tabulations by CM/BJS. Report also available at: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/iptc.htm.

14. Bryson, Ken and Lynn M. Casper, (1999), Coresident Grandparents and Grandchildren, Current Population Reports (P23-198), Washington, D.C.:U.S. Bureau of the Census. Report also available at: http://www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/p23-198.pdf

15. Sonenstein, Freya, et. al., (1997), Involving Males in Teen Pregnancy Prevention, Washington, D.C., The Urban Institute and Moore, Kristen, Anne Driscoll, and Theodora Ooms, (1997), Not Just For Girls, Washington, D.C.: Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.

16. Boggess, Scott, Laura Duberstein Lindborg, and Laura Porter, (2000), Changes in Risk-Taking among High School Students, 1991-1997: Evidence from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveys, Washington D.C.: The Urban Institute under contract HHS-95-0021 with the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, HHS, and Sonenstein, Freya, (Ed), (2000), Young Men's Sexual and Reproductive Health: Toward a National Strategy, Framework and Recommendations, Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute under contract with the Office of Population Affairs/HHS.

17. Sorenson, Elaine, Nonresident Fathers: What We Know and What's Left to Learn? and Martin, Elizabeth and Paul Siegel, New Directions for Exploring Fathers Attachment to Households, in Nurturing Fatherhood: Improving Data and Reseach on Male Fertility, Family Formation and Fatherhood , Washington, D.C: Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, (1998) (Report available at: http://fatherhood.hhs.gov/fi-forum.htm.) and Sorensen, Elaine and Laura Wheaton, (2000), Income and Demographic Characteristics of Nonresident Fathers in 1993, Washington D.C.: Urban Institute-under contract with the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Department of Health and Human Services.

18. This section on research has relied on materials gathered in the development of the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics report, Nurturing Fatherhood: Improving Data and Reseach on Male Fertility, Family Formation and Fatherhood and the research synthesis presented in three research briefs prepared by Child Trends, Inc. a private, non-profit research firm in Washington D.C. The three briefs, What Do Fathers Contribute to Children's Well-Being?, How Do Social, Economic and Cultural Factors Influence Fathers' Involvement with their Children?, and The Meaning of Father Involvement for Children can be found on the Child Trends website at: childtrends.org. (See footnote 18 for information on Nurturing Fatherhood report.)

19. Lamb, Michael E., (Ed.) (1997), The Role of Fathers in Child Development, New York: John Wiley & Sons.

20. The report, Nurturing Fatherhood: Improving Data and Research on Male Fertility, Family Formation and Fatherhood, documents the strengths and weaknesses of data collection on fathering and becoming a father within current data collection and research efforts. The report summarizes a series of meetings and commissioned papers prepared by a public/private collaboration under the auspices of the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. The report is available at: http://fatherhood.hhs.gov/fi-forum.htm.

21. McLanahan, Sara, and Gary Sandefur, (1994), Growing Up with a Single parent: What Hurts, What Helps,

Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

22. Lamb, Michael E., (1997). "The Development of Father-Infant Relationships" in Lamb, Michael E., (Ed.), The Role of Fathers in Child Development, New York: John Wiley & Sons, and Pruett, Kyle D., (1990), Fatherneed, New York: The Free Press.

23. Mosley, J. and E. Thompson "Fathering Behavior and Child Outcomes: The Role of Race and Poverty" in W. Marsiglio (Ed.) (1995) Fatherhood: Contemporary Theory, Research and Social Policy, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

24. Nord, Christine, DeeAnn Brimhall, and Jerry West (1997), Father's Involvement in Their Children's Schools, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education and Nord, Christine and Jerry West, (2000). Fathers' and Mothers' Involvement in Their Children's Schools by Family Type and Resident Status, NCES 2001-032, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education.

25. Johnson, Robert, John Hoffmann, and Dean Gerstein, (1996) The Relationship Between Family Structure and Adolescent Substance Abuse, Washington, D.C.: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, HHS and Moore, Kristin, Anne Driscoll, and Theodora Ooms, Not Just for Girls, The Roles of Men and Boys in Teen Pregnancy Prevention, Washington, D.C.: The Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. Also see Lamb, Michael E., (Ed.) (1997), The Role of Fathers in Child Development, New York: John Wiley & Sons.

26. Johnson, Robert, John Hoffmann, and Dean Gerstein, (1996) The Relationship Between Family Structure and Adolescent Substance Abuse, Washington, D.C.: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Department of Health and Human Services.

27. Harper, Cynthia and Sara McLanahan, (1998) Father Absence and Youth Incarceration, Paper prepared for the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco.

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Last updated: 1/19/01