The Parents’ Fair Share (PFS) Demonstration:
Matching Opportunities to Obligations

Chapter 5:
Peer Support

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Contents

1. The Role of Peer Support in PFS
   1. What is Peer Support In PFS?
   2. The Responsible Fatherhood Curriculum
2. Peer Support in the Sites
   1. Providers
   2. The Facilitators
   3. Schedules and Sequence
   4. The Sessions
   5. Participation Patterns
3. Peer Support Through the Eyes of Participants
   1. First Impressions
   2. Becoming Attached and Opening Up
   3. Changing Perspectives
   4. Changing Behavior
   5. How Peer Support Works
   6. The Limitations of Peer Support
4. Conclusions

Endnotes

This chapter describes how the peer support component operates in the PFS sites and examines how this unusual activity is experienced by participants and staff. The chapter begins with a brief introduction to peer support, describing what it is and why is part of the PFS service package. The next section describes the agencies and staff that are responsible for peer support, the nature of the sessions, and the patterns of participation by noncustodial parents. The following section examines the experiences of participants and staff based in part on individual interviews. The final section discusses some lessons for operating peer support in Phase II of the demonstration.

Peer support was included in the PFS model largely to enhance the effectiveness of employment and training services. In fact, it has emerged as the core of the PFS program in most sites and, judging by the levels of participation and enthusiasm, the most successful program component. Participants and staff consistently contend that peer support stimulates profound changes in outlooks and behavior that create the preconditions for success in the other components. Of course, peer support's potency is limited in some respects and the changes it induces may be temporary. Nevertheless, the early results clearly demonstrate that this component has become an indispensable part of the PFS approach and a potentially formidable tool for empowering and inspiring participants to change their lives.

I. The Role of Peer Support in PFS

The key objective of Parents' Fair Share is to increase the amount of child support paid by the noncustodial parents of children receiving AFDC. As discussed in Chapter 3, lack of income as a result of unemployment or underemployment is a critical barrier to paying child support for many of these parents. Thus, employment and job training are core services in the PFS program design. Enhanced child support enforcement, discussed in Chapter 6, is also a core PFS component. Tailored to the specific circumstances of poor noncustodial parents, the enhanced CSE component is intended to ensure that these men do not "fall through the cracks" of the system charged with making parental obligations real, and that the system responds flexibly to their circumstances.

Offering the opportunity to learn job skills and to work may be the key to increasing child support payment rates for some poor men while putting in place an efficient and responsive child support enforcement system is expected to convert others into regular payers. But these two components may not be sufficient for many members of the PFS target group; their ideas about what it means to be a parent and a provider have to change before either the opportunity for a job or the threat of enforcement will lead to long-term changes in their child support payment patterns.

In background research conducted for PFS using data from the National Longitudinal Survey (NLS), Ronald Ferguson found that young mens' child support payment patterns were linked less to their total earnings than to the amount they worked (measured in weeks per year), and to a set of family background, lifestyle, and attitude variables. ⁽¹⁾ Interestingly, a young man's "human capital" (measured by years of schooling and test scores) was found to influence his weekly earnings, but not the number of weeks he worked. Rather, weeks worked were linked to the same background and attitude variables that affect child support payments.

Applying these data to PFS, Ferguson concluded that an intervention consisting solely of employment and training (i.e., human capital-building) and enforcement activities would not necessarily lead to regular work and child support payments. Rather, he suggested that a successful program would also need to address "social and psychological factors that lead men to choose against working regularly at the wages that are available to them" and making regular child support payments. These and other similar findings led MDRC to conclude that Parents' Fair Share should include -- in addition to employment and training -- activities aimed at increasing the fathers' commitment to mainstream work and child support.

At the same time, qualitative research, including focus group discussions with noncustodial parents, suggested that it would be difficult to engage noncustodial parents in any program that was perceived to be linked to the CSE system; many low-income noncustodial parents see this system as fundamentally unfair and one-sided. Thus, in order to persuade these parents to make a serious commitment to improving their skills, PFS would need to reach out to them in a way the system had rarely done in the past.

A. What is Peer Support In PFS?

"Peer support" is the approach that was chosen to try to engage noncustodial parents and offer them new perspectives on child support and fatherhood. Based on a group counseling and education model that is used for many types of behavior-change interventions (such as substance abuse treatment), this component relies on a detailed curriculum for group meetings, called Responsible Fatherhood. ⁽²⁾ "Peer group facilitators" in each PFS site use the curriculum to structure and lead group discussion, although the participants play an important role as each others' teachers, as well as learners.

The underlying hypothesis, and the reason for the name of the activity, is that most poor, noncustodial parents want to do the right thing at least their own version of it but need understanding and encouragement from men like themselves to try, as well as new knowledge and skills. It is assumed that men who are perceived to be "in the same boat" will be more successful than society's authority figures at holding up a mirror to the fathers whose talk and behavior is counterproductive. Specifically, the presumption is that most PFS participants do not have to be persuaded of the importance of taking care of their children and playing a role in their children's lives as teacher, guide, protector, and decisionmaker. Neither do they have to be persuaded of the desirability of staying out of legal trouble. Rather, the job of the peer support component the facilitators and the curriculum in combination is to help them focus more clearly on their feelings for their children and to bring both the collective experience of the participants and the techniques of behavior change to bear on the problem of how these men can become good parents and providers in the very difficult circumstances that confront most of them.

This approach may be controversial. For example, the Responsible Fatherhood curriculum implicitly assumes that noncustodial parents should be involved with their children. Research has shown that noncustodial fathers who see their children more frequently are more likely to pay child support. ⁽³⁾ Moreover, it is assumed that children benefit when their fathers play a larger role in their lives. ⁽⁴⁾ Critics of this view contend that some fathers are not good role models (or are abusive) and should not be encouraged to stay in contact with their children. Some have also suggested that by promoting increased father-child contact peer support may imply a link between visitation and child support; noncustodial parents might respond by refusing to pay support when they feel they are denied visitation. Advocates for custodial parents have fought to create a legal separation between these two issues in order to emphasize that child support must be paid under any circumstances.

Other critics have argued more generally that the peer support approach may lend credibility to the noncustodial parents' complaints about the CSE system and the reasons they give for not paying support; in the view of these observers, such complaints and explanations are usually no more than excuses for irresponsible behavior.

These concerns are legitimate, and they are reflected in the design of the component. For example, while peer support does promote father-child contact in general, it also teaches fathers how to be better role models for their children and how to understand their childrens' behavior and development. Moreover, contact would never be encouraged in a situation where abuse is likely, and a custodial parent would never be forced to accept increased visitation (unless a court issues and enforces a visitation order). Similarly, while peer support encourages noncustodial parents to vent their complaints about the CSE system, the responsibility to pay support is presented as a non-negotiable item. Parents are encouraged (and in some cases assisted) to address their concerns about CSE issues through official channels rather than through noncooperation.

B. The Responsible Fatherhood Curriculum

For the PFS sites, the requirements for implementing a peer support component are closely tied to the Responsible Fatherhood curriculum. During the pilot phase of the demonstration, every site was required to use this curriculum unless they offered a roughly similar alternative for MDRC's review and approval. Eventually, all but one adopted the curriculum, although a few sites started peer support groups without such a formal plan.

Responsible Fatherhood is divided into 13 sessions, designed to take a total of 90 to 120 minutes each, with three to five activities per session. ⁽⁵⁾ (See Table 5.1 for a list of topics addressed in the curriculum.) The session materials begin with a description of "key concepts" and classroom materials needed and then, for each activity, the curriculum provides detailed instructions on how to conduct it, questions for facilitators to pose for group discussion, and additional resource information to enable facilitators to answer questions of fact. Also included are planning notes that alert facilitators when advance arrangements are needed, tips on facilitation techniques, and pointers for adapting the curriculum to men with specific needs or problems (for example, poor readers). ⁽⁶⁾

TABLE 5.1

Among the topics that peer support activities target are: learning about child development and what children need from parents; improving fathers' interpersonal skills and their ability to negotiate with custodial parents, employers, child support agency staff and other important people in their lives; learning how the child support system works and about fathers' legal rights and responsibilities; forming and reinforcing positive images of themselves as men, fathers, and partners; practicing setting goals and following through on commitments; recognizing patterns in their own behavior that create problems for them and affect their children's well-being; and learning techniques for handling anger and conflict without violence.

The sites were required to send the staff hired to be peer support facilitators to a 2-day training workshop held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in June, 1992. This workshop featured group-leading demonstrations by the authors of the curriculum and practice sessions for the sites' facilitators, interspersed with discussions of the problems of poor fathers and the principles of intervening to change attitudes and behaviors. A panel discussion with men participating in a local program for fathers concluded the training session.

The peer support mandate for PFS enrollees is to attend the sessions in their site, although there are varying policies for how absences are handled across the demonstration. While many of the curriculum activities instruct facilitators to ask every participant to contribute an opinion or experience to the group discussion and facilitators encourage the men to share their thoughts, the fathers are not required to actively participate. Participants are Bly and repeatedly reminded to keep information revealed in peer groups confidential, but privacy and the right to "pass" on discussing personal issues are also recognized principles of the PFS peer support component (and of most peer groups that address other types of behavior change).

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II. Peer Support in the Sites

This section examines how the peer support component operates in the PFS pilot sites. It begins by describing the agencies that are responsible for peer support, the facilitators who lead the groups, and the typical schedules for group meetings. The next section describes the content and atmosphere of the sessions themselves. The final section examines the patterns of participation in peer support, based on data reported to MDRC by the sites.

A. Providers

As noted in Chapter 2, each of the PFS sites has developed a distinct organizational structure to operate the peer support component. ⁽⁷⁾ In four of the sites, peer support groups are facilitated by case managers employed by the PFS lead agency: the JOBS program in Missouri and Alabama, a private, nonprofit social services agency in New Jersey, and the child support enforcement agency in Michigan. ⁽⁸⁾ In these sites, the peer support facilitators are usually responsible for other aspects of the program, such as monitoring participants' activities, providing individual counseling, or developing job openings, in addition to leading groups.

In the other sites, peer support is operated by an outside agency under contract to the lead agency. In these sites, the facilitators are solely or primarily responsible for this aspect of the program (although they typically work quite closely with other PFS staff). ⁽⁹⁾ The contracted providers include a branch of Goodwill Industries (Montgomery County, Ohio), a private consultant (Minnesota), family health agencies (Butler County, Ohio and Florida), a community college (Tennessee) and a nonprofit organization specializing in employment and education programs for "special" populations (Massachusetts).

In most of the sites where outside agencies were selected to provide peer support, these organizations had some relevant experience, either with the PFS population, the subject matter (e.g., parenting or life skills), or with operating peer support groups around other topics. For example, the consultant hired to facilitate peer support groups in Minnesota is associated with the Fathers Resource Center, a private, nonprofit education and advocacy organization. In Florida, the agency selected to provide peer support also operates a program for young mothers as part of New Chance, another MDRC demonstration project. The New Chance model includes a group activity based on a curriculum that is similar to Responsible Fatherhood.

B. The Facilitators

Although the Responsible Fatherhood curriculum is a potentially powerful tool, the success of the peer support component is heavily dependent on the skills of the group facilitators. These individuals must be able to earn the trust of the participants and help them draw out the ideas that are implicit in the curriculum and learn how to apply them in their everyday lives.

The pilot sites employ from 1 to 4 peer support facilitators at any one time; the staffing structure depends on the size of the participant population, the schedule for peer support (discussed below), and the additional responsibilities (if any) that are assigned to facilitators.

There are no demonstration-wide specifications concerning the qualifications or previous experience of the staff hired as facilitators. However, during the demonstration's planning stage, MDRC convened a group of individuals with experience facilitating groups for men to review an early version of the Responsible Fatherhood curriculum and develop a profile of the ideal facilitator. ⁽¹⁰⁾ This profile stressed that specific knowledge about the PFS population and the program area could be learned, but that sensitivity and an ability to communicate with the participants must be part of a facilitator's personality. Thus, in hiring facilitators, sites were encouraged to carefully assess each candidates' ability to listen to and understand other people. The profile also emphasized that facilitators must be objective and non-judgmental, that they must be willing to let participants help set the agenda for the group, and that they must believe in the participants. Finally, the group noted that successful facilitators often serve as role models for group members. Thus, whenever possible, sites were urged to hire facilitators whose backgrounds and cultural experiences were similar to those of the participant population.

In general, the PFS sites have been able to find high-quality staff for the peer support component. Many of the facilitators had substantial experience in group facilitation, counseling, social work, or another related field. Several had previous experience in chemical dependency counseling in community organizations. Others had advanced degrees in counseling or social work. But, while relevant training and experience are obviously a major plus, they are not always necessary; in one site, the facilitators were promoted from positions as AFDC eligibility workers.

Overall, the gender and ethnic characteristics of the facilitators have generally matched those of the PFS population (see Chapter 3): almost 90 percent of the facilitators have been male and more than two-thirds have been African-American. Turnover has been relatively low during the pilot phase; as of August 1993, individuals who participated in the initial training session for facilitators were still on the job in 8 of the 9 pilot sites. ⁽¹¹⁾

C. Schedules and Sequence

As described in Chapter 2, participants usually join a peer support group soon after their initial orientation to PFS, often before beginning employment and training or other PFS activities. This sequence was generally chosen because staff have discovered that peer support often helps to diffuse the anger and resentment that many participants feel about being required to participate in PFS, thereby increasing their ability to benefit from employment preparation activities. Peer support can also lend credibility to PFS as a whole by showing that the program takes the views of noncustodial parents seriously; this, in turn, may increase participants' willingness to stay involved. Sites that initially did not follow this approach quickly shifted peer support closer to the beginning of the program sequence.

In several sites, including Tennessee, Missouri, and New Jersey, participants usually complete the full peer support curriculum before moving to employment and training activities. This involves roughly 10 sessions over a 2-3 week period in New Jersey and Missouri, and 25 sessions over 5 weeks in Tennessee, where the Responsible Fatherhood curriculum is preceded by a 2-week course on Survival Skills for Men. ⁽¹²⁾

In the other sites, participants usually start employment and training activities shortly after beginning peer support, and remain active in both components concurrently. Peer support tends to meet 2-3 times per week in these sites, and continues for varying lengths of time. The criteria for completing peer support are not always clearly defined, but usually include finishing a specific number of sessions of the Responsible Fatherhood curriculum (usually 10-13). The longest periods of participation tend to be in Montgomery County, Ohio, where participants may attend peer support three times per week for 4 to 6 months before "graduating" to a once-a-week schedule that continues indefinitely on a voluntary basis. ⁽¹³⁾ Most sites hold periodic "graduation" ceremonies to recognize participants who complete peer support. Some sites hold evening sessions to facilitate continued attendance by employed participants.

In training sessions prior to the start of the demonstration, MDRC recommended that sites form new peer support groups periodically and then keep these groups together while moving through the curriculum, rather than operating the program on an open-entry basis. This model was advised to facilitate "bonding" and the creation of a group identity. However, as might be expected in a program that relies on a complex set of organizational linkages to identify and refer eligible participants, it has been difficult for most of the pilot sites to precisely control the rate of referrals into PFS. In these sites, the flow of participants into the program does not always allow for a regular schedule of group start-ups. Given the need to engage participants quickly, staff in most of these sites decided that it was necessary to integrate participants into existing peer support groups, at least in some cases. ⁽¹⁴⁾ Facilitators have adopted a number of strategies to ease this process. For example, in some sites, the Responsible Fatherhood modules are offered in an unending cycle; participants may enter at any time in the cycle and then are expected to remain involved until they have completed all of the required modules. In one site, the facilitator meets individually with each participant who is joining an existing group to summarize the topics that were covered prior to his arrival.

D. The Sessions

Peer support sessions may include from as few as 3 to as many as 20 participants (the recommended number is 8 to 12). They usually last for 90-120 minutes and meet in a variety of settings. In several sites, including Florida, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New Jersey, most PFS activities -- including peer support meetings -- take place in a main PFS program office. In other sites, where program activities are more dispersed, peer support meetings may take place in churches, schools, welfare offices, college campuses, or other locations in the community. The groups generally meet in a classroom or meeting room, with participants sitting in a circle or around a table and the facilitator either sitting with them or standing as he or she leads the session.

The content of meetings usually revolves around the Responsible Fatherhood curriculum. The sessions outlined in the curriculum generally begin with an activity called "What's New" that brings the group together and reviews what has happened in the participants' lives since the last meeting. This is usually followed by one or more exercises that actively engage the group. These may take the form of a game or contest, a role-playing activity, presentation of hypothetical scenarios to which the group reacts, or completion of a handout that elicits the participants' views about specific issues. ⁽¹⁵⁾ The facilitator then leads a discussion in which participants first report what they did and felt during the activity, and then examine in depth why they acted and thought as they did. Finally, participants are asked to connect the activity to real-world situations, and to think about how they would apply the ideas in their own lives.

Peer support sessions are meant to be interactive rather than adopting a traditional teacher-student mode. Facilitators often find that they must initiate most of the discussion during the early sessions, but talk less and less as the participants become more comfortable. Sessions tend to be quite lively; participants are engaged and discussions often become boisterous or heated. Depending on the topic, the mood may be lighthearted or extremely intense. Facilitators in several sites report that discussions of male-female relationships and race relations tend to provoke the most emotional discussions. Facilitators are often challenged to keep these intense discussions moving in a productive direction, and to bring positive closure to the ideas and issues raised so that participants come away with a clear sense of the session's purpose and key points.

Although the Responsible Fatherhood curriculum is designed as a guide for the peer support sessions, facilitators are expected to mold the curriculum to suit their groups, and to add other activities to the peer support component where appropriate. For example, a facilitator may decide that it is important to address a pressing issue that is on the participants' minds when they come in for the session, rather than adhering rigidly to the curriculum. Thus, a topic that emerges during the "What's New" segment may stimulate a longer discussion that preempts the planned activity. Most facilitators feel that it is important to allow the participants to "share ownership" of the group in this manner, rather than insisting on conforming strictly to the prescribed curriculum every day.

Many of the facilitators have supplemented the curriculum with additional activities. This is particularly true in Montgomery County, Ohio, where the facilitators have greatly expanded the scope of the peer support component. "Extra-curricular" activities in this site have included a picnic and Easter Egg hunt for participants and their children, a cookout, a basketball game between participants and the Dayton Police Department, a breakfast meeting with the Mayor of Dayton, and sessions with other local elected officials. Guest speakers from the child support enforcement agency, the courts, the police department, and local health and social services agencies have visited peer support groups to discuss topics ranging from AIDS prevention and immunization of children to violence prevention, drug abuse, and child support rights and responsibilities. Panels of women have presented their perspectives on child support, male-female relationships, sexism, and other issues. In one case, a facilitator visited many of the participants' children in school and solicited questions from the children for their fathers. Several of these special activities have involved members of several concurrently-running peer support groups, and have drawn as many as 80 participants. The peer support program has generated B community support and favorable press coverage on numerous occasions.

Other sites have also organized a variety of social and recreational activities for participants and often use guest speakers. The Tennessee site periodically organizes low-cost outings to demonstrate that father-child activities do not need to be expensive. Child support enforcement staff and court officials have visited groups in most sites to help participants understand how the system operates. Other guest speakers have included a U.S. Senator (New Jersey), and the head of the state health and welfare agency (Missouri).

E. Participation Patterns

In most of the pilot sites, peer support has been quite successful in engaging PFS participants, especially given that PFS is a mandatory program. Chapter 4 indicated that, overall, about 60 percent of those referred to PFS attended at least one peer support session within four months of the referral. It also showed that the vast majority of noncustodial parents who were active in PFS at all participated in peer support; only about 9 percent of PFS participants never attended a peer support session.

Table 5.2 shows that, among those noncustodial parents who appeared for at least one session of peer support, the average number of sessions attended within four months of referral is nearly 12; this is approximately equal to the number of core sessions in the Responsible Fatherhood curriculum. The table also indicates that about one in five participants dropped out quickly, attending only 1-3 sessions. Those who stayed active beyond this point were quite likely to complete the full number of expected sessions. This is consistent with the perceptions of facilitators, as described below.

TABLE 5.2

The overall averages mask some large differences across sites. For example, the average number of sessions per peer support participant ranged from less than 5 in Michigan to more than 20 in Montgomery County, Ohio (where two-thirds were still active at the end of four months). In Florida, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montgomery County, Ohio, and Tennessee, more than half of those who participated in peer support attended at least 10 sessions. This proportion was nearly 75 percent in Tennessee and over 80 percent in Montgomery County.

Of course, the average number of sessions per participant partly reflects the site's expectations; the bottom row of the table indicates the approximate number of sessions participants are expected to attend in each site. However, the average also provides some evidence about the degree to which peer support has succeeded in engaging participants in each site. It is notable that the sites with the highest average number of sessions attended and the greatest proportion of participants attending 10 or more sessions (Ohio, Tennessee, Florida, and Massachusetts) are all sites where responsibility for peer support is contracted to an outside agency. As noted earlier, facilitators in these sites are usually responsible only for peer support, while in other sites groups are often facilitated by PFS case managers who also have other duties. It may be that peer support receives more concentrated attention in the former sites, or that the facilitators have greater expertise and experience working in a group -- as opposed to an individual -- setting.

Another way to look at peer support participation is to examine attendance at particular sessions and the facilitators' perceptions of how many of the attendees are actively involved in the discussion. This was done by examining feedback forms completed by facilitators as part of an assessment of the Responsible Fatherhood curriculum. These data suggest that, for most modules of the curriculum, 70-75 percent of the noncustodial parents who are expected to attend a given session are actually present; some fraction of those who are not present have good excuses. Of those present, the facilitators estimated that 70-85 percent actively participate in the discussion.

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III. Peer Support Through the Eyes of Participants

This section looks at peer support from the perspective of the noncustodial parents who experience it and the facilitators who lead groups, relying heavily on the 19 individual interviews described in Chapter 3. ⁽¹⁶⁾ It begins by examining the participants' perceptions of peer support: their initial impressions, the process of becoming attached to the group, and the kinds of changes that often follow. The final sections discuss the views of participants and facilitators as to why peer support can be so successful and also examine some of its limitations.

A. First Impressions

As discussed in Chapter 3, many noncustodial parents are initially angry and resentful about being ordered to participate in PFS and skeptical about the program's ability to help them. This skepticism extends to peer support. Many of the participants who were interviewed for this study said they were quiet and cautious during early sessions of peer support as they assessed the program, the other group members, and the facilitator. As one Tennessee participant put it, "you think about: is it for me or against me?" Others said they were suspicious of the other group members, initially thinking they were "belly achers" or people with "serious mental problems." Some were skeptical about the facilitator's ability to understand their plight. One said he initially saw the facilitator as a "college guy...thinking that he knew it all, that's not in the same situation [as the participants]."

B. Becoming Attached and Opening Up

Most of the interviewees reported getting over their initial skepticism and anger surprisingly quickly, and said that they grew Bly attached to peer support within 1 to 2 weeks. Almost all of them said they rarely if ever missed a session and emphasized that, after the initial period, fear of the courts ceased to be their primary motivation for attending. As one New Jersey participant put it, "...its like addicting after a little while because I was wondering what was going to happen next. It was like an episode." The participation data presented earlier generally confirm that in most sites participants who attend at least a few sessions of peer support are quite likely to remain involved. Facilitators report that if a participant is going to drop out he usually does so within the first week. Those who remain past that point tend to be Bly committed.

Observers of peer support sessions are frequently surprised at how quickly participants become willing to discuss highly personal subjects and disclose intimate details of their private lives; many had predicted that men would not be willing to participate in such discussions. And yet, even early group meetings can be highly emotional. Discussions about witnessing childbirth, or of times spent with children, often generate tremendous excitement and enthusiasm. The subject of male-female relationships stirs up B opinions and loud, raucous exchanges. Participants also regularly discuss or tell moving stories about their relationships with their fathers or ex-partners; their experiences with racism, drugs, alcohol, or crime; feelings of inadequacy as fathers; and other deeply personal subjects. Often, the discussion becomes quite intense, and touches on subjects that are painful for group members. Sessions often run over their allotted time, and participants sometimes linger even longer to talk and socialize.

In some sites, PFS program managers and facilitators may have initially underestimated the ability of peer support to persuade participants to open up. In some cases, this process has unearthed serious emotional issues and problems. Discussions sometimes reveal child abuse, domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, or criminal activities. One participant described some of the disturbing topics that came up in his group:

Kids being abused; kids having to do things that are degrading for a child to have to do. Parents neglecting, or children getting caught in between parents fighting...Some of them kids have to go through some stuff...Your younger days, those are the days you're supposed to enjoy the most...Kids, you've got to give them that room to grow. It means a lot to them. Some of those kids, they're just growing up too fast.

Many of the facilitators are not trained mental health professionals. However, they must be prepared to deal with these deeply-rooted problems, and to get outside help for participants when necessary. In other cases, they must be prepared to break the group's confidence to report child abuse (noncustodial parents are advised of this up front). Sites are encouraged to ensure that facilitators are closely supervised by staff with clinical training.

In interviews, participants cited a broad range of factors in explaining their attachment to peer support and willingness to open up to the other participants. Several of these are discussed below.

1. Meeting Others in the Same Boat. Almost all of the interviewees described the powerful effect of meeting others who were experiencing similar problems; many described how this reduced their own feelings of isolation and powerlessness and made them feel part of the group. Several said they were surprised or relieved to meet other people whose problems seemed even more serious than their own. Participants often became tightly bound to the group and said they felt committed to the other members. Many used words like "close-knit" and "family" to describe the bonds that formed among group members. The following statements, typical of those made by almost all of the interviewees, illustrate these powerful feelings of belonging:

Everybody here is peaceful, friendly, and there's a lot to learn...We all come from different parts of the city [but] when everybody comes in its just like one person is here because we all agree on the same things, the same problems...I'm very interested in what this has to offer.

Its male bonding, plain and simple. It breaks down the stereotypes that men can't talk to other men about their problems, about their feelings and their emotions...Getting a lot of men together with the same problems has a tendency to make other men open up themselves to discuss what's going on with them and to help each other solve their problems...You come in an as individual but nine times out of ten you leave feeling like family.

At first, I was the shy type, keep to myself...but after I started going to [peer support] and talking to other fathers about their problems and what they was going through, situations they was having, and I sat back and listened [I thought]: "Hey that's basically the same thing I'm going through...maybe they can help me out and give me some advice."

For some participants, this process was assisted by early discussions with peer support "veterans" who advised them to give the program a chance. This occurred either because the interviewees had been integrated into existing groups, or because veterans were brought in to meet with groups of new participants. Several participants also noted that they were more willing to open up knowing that what they said would be treated confidentially.

2. Feeling Wanted. Several of the interviewees, perhaps unwilling or unable to discuss their own situations, described their attachment to peer support primarily in terms of their ability to help and guide other fathers. Many were surprised to find that they had this capacity. As one participant put it:

You learn from one another...I might be a help for someone...Something that happened to them might have happened to you and then you sit down and debate about it...and you turn around and find out you helped that person...you changed that person's way of thinking...That motivates a person to want to come to class...You've got somebody that cares when in the past you probably didn't have nobody that cared.

Several of the interviewees recounted, with obvious pride, situations where they said they had helped another group member deal with a problem. Others described how good it felt when their fellow group members greeted them enthusiastically when they arrived for sessions.

In a few cases, older fathers (usually in their 40s) said they used their experience to help younger fathers deal with problems. Some of the facilitators noted that older participants can sometimes exert a calming, steadying influence on younger participants in their groups.

3. Relieving Pressure and Speaking Out. For many of the participants, peer support provides a forum to discuss issues that are causing great pain or anxiety in their lives. Several of the interviewees noted that women often have such opportunities, but that men usually keep such feelings to themselves. One participant put it this way:

Its a bunch of guys getting together and being able to talk because they can't talk to someone at home or one of their friends...about problems they're having. I guess its mens' nature. Women will talk to their best friend, cry, tell them all their problems...Just to be able to talk takes a lot of burden off your shoulders...and its in confidence.

One of the interviewees recounted how he had attended peer support only hours after finding out that his mother had died, even though he had only been in the program for two weeks at the time. The other members of the group attended his mother's funeral and, from that point on, he felt Bly bound to the group.

For some participants, peer support clearly provides a refuge from the tense, chaotic, violent conditions in their neighborhoods. As one New Jersey participant put it:

The streets are raw, that's uncut...I've lived it for 24 years of my life. I've seen a whole lot of crazy things...things that scared me out of my wits...Sometimes you feel safer coming to someplace where you know there's not a whole lot of violence, its not animosity, you don't have to deal with anything that makes you angry...[you can] get everything off your chest to someone who understands.

4. The Facilitator. Several of the interviewees said that the facilitator was primarily responsible for binding them to peer support. Works like "caring" and "concerned" were frequently used to describe the facilitators. Some participants said they had not had contact with someone who cared so much about them for many years. Several seemed to perceive the facilitator as father-figure, providing discipline they had not received from their own fathers. One said that the group was "like a family and he [the facilitator] is the pop."

Others saluted the facilitator for being "non-judgmental," saying that his ability to listen without scolding or judging was a critical reason that participants were willing to open up. Facilitators report that they must tread a fine line in reacting to negative statements during sessions. Especially during the early days of a group, it may be necessary to listen to participants voice opinions that are directly contrary to the program's goals in order to "meet them where they are." These facilitators feel that if they immediately began to confront participants, they would be unable to gain the confidence and trust of group members. Over time, as trust develops, they and other group members gradually begin to challenge counter-productive views more forcefully.

5. The Subject Matter. Many interviewees said they kept coming simply because peer support was "interesting" or because the curriculum activities were "thought provoking"; several said that they had saved the handouts and other materials at home. A number of Ohio participants have contacted MDRC to request copies of the Responsible Fatherhood curriculum.

C. Changing Perspectives

The bottom line goal of peer support is to change behavior. However, in order to achieve this objective several of the facilitators agreed that it is sometimes necessary to first change participants' outlooks and perspectives, or at least to help them see that there are different ways to look at important issues in their lives. All reported that a substantial fraction of peer support participants do in fact change in noticeable ways during their time in the program.

Each of the interviewees was able to describe, with little hesitation, concrete ways in which his outlook had changed or expanded as a result of his contact with peer support. Some of these changes were startling, given the relatively short time they had been in contact with the program. One New Jersey participant, after less than 3 weeks in peer support, said:

This [peer support] is the best thing that happened to me since my son...this is one of the best things that ever happened to me because I never had nothing to look forward to...I feel good about myself now. I'm more relaxed, my nerves aren't as bad. I would shake a glass into pieces, my nerves were so bad. I never had a decent thought up until now.

Other examples of changed outlooks were more specific and seemed to fall into a few basic categories, including the following:

1. Focusing on Children. Several of the facilitators said that an important goal of peer support is to help noncustodial parents focus more clearly on their children. They explain that once this is accomplished the participants can see more concretely how their behavior toward the custodial parent, their work habits, and their child support payment patterns affect the child's well-being. This motivates them to change negative behavior patterns.

Many of the interviewees indicated that rediscovering their feelings for their children was one of the most profound effects of their involvement in peer support. Several said they had begun to expand their notion of fatherhood: they had formerly defined their role strictly in terms of financial support and, when they couldn't provide this support, began to see themselves as bad parents. Gradually, they began to realize that there was more to be being a father. As one Ohio participant put it:

Before, I thought of myself as, 'yeah, I'm a father" but that doesn't mean a hell of a lot. I've learned since then that it means a lot more than I thought. It means not just responsibility, not just a paycheck, not a pocketbook, it means you have to be somebody there who is caring and that has the ability to understand what the child is going through...It [peer support] does make you sit down and think about the situation between yourself and the ex and the child, and it makes you realize what the child means to you. That's something I'd never really taken into consideration.

Ironically, in order to help participants understand the range of issues associated with fatherhood, facilitators report that it is often necessary to broaden their focus beyond financial support. One facilitator described the goal of peer support as:

[helping] the father to bond with his children. Because ultimately, that's going to help both parties...Most have the concept that if I take $5 or $10 or $20 by, that's being a father. But there's more to it. If you ask the child twenty years from now what he remembers, its not the $5 or $10 that you gave, its the time that you went to the park, or the times you went fishing, the times you sat down and shared your experiences with him. Otherwise, we have a generation that's on the verge of being in the correctional system or dead.

Of course, the challenge for facilitators is to make sure that participants do not begin to define responsible fatherhood strictly in non-financial terms, since one of the project's ultimate goals is to improve child support payment rates.

Several interviewees said that peer support helped them see the need to set aside quarrels with the custodial parent for the good of the child. Others began to understand the extent to which their behavior influenced their children, and made them realize that they could serve as positive role models. More than one said he had never really thought about the importance of listening to a child and understanding his or her viewpoint. One participant said he began to realize that:

Kids are complex...Kids go through stages...and they're very apt to pick up things and they won't forget it, it'll stay with them. And those things that you can teach them, that you can instill in [them], like your parents put in you, you can put in your children, and maybe they'll come out all right. Because I feel I came out pretty good.

Interestingly, one facilitator who was not a parent himself said he sometimes found it difficult to gain the participants' respect and trust during these discussions. Another, who is a father, explained that he often found it necessary to use "self-disclosure" in addressing this topic because the participants had so little personal experience with positive father-figures.

2. Self-Esteem. One of the most common changes reported by interviewees involved developing "confidence" or "self-esteem." Several participants said they had been "depressed" or "lazy" prior to starting peer support, often because they had internalized a negative view of themselves that had been repeated by the custodial parent, her family, the child support enforcement system, and the labor market. Several used metaphors that described a process of "waking up" after a long period of sleep. One participant said that peer support "gives me confidence, gives me something to look forward to." Two others expressed similar sentiments:

It gave me a big boost of self-confidence that I never had, not since I was 15...You've got to feel good about yourself in order to get by in the world. I've had it, but I never really let it shine, so to speak...I had a attitude problem; a short fuse, and I refused to see anything anyone else's way. It was my way or no way. I had a drug and alcohol problem; I started recovering on my own, but this program helped out. It gave me back my self-confidence...I want to go forward the rest of my life instead of sitting there watching it go by.

I kind of saw myself as being a deadbeat dad. You know you hear "deadbeat dad." But I feel now more like I'm just a dad who had problems.

3. Handling Anger. A surprisingly large proportion of interviewees, particularly in Ohio, said that peer support had helped them become "calmer" and made them better able to deal with problems without resorting to violence. In fact, one father described the primary objective of Parents' Fair Share as:

Keeping violence down. A lot of fathers, they get frustrated because of their ex-wives...a lot of problems with them...there's a lot of people fighting. I think you get into the program and you get used to all the guys and you get to know them all pretty well and start talking about your own problems. I think it helps to blow off a lot of steam.

Another Ohio interviewee, clearly an extreme case, described with great anger and emotion how his ex-wife was, in his view, ruining his children's lives by allowing drug activity and other negative influences into their home. He said he had considered violence several times, but insisted that:

...it [peer support] has kept me from going over there and doing it because I know I'm going to be absolutely no help if I go over and kill that b-. I'll never be able to salvage the rest of my daughter's life -- and my son. Peer support has helped me keep my sanity...its saved my life more than once.

Several interviewees said that they or other group members sometimes presented problems or frustrations to the group or the facilitator for discussion before reacting.

As described above, peer support sessions often expose participants' intense anger and frustration over their lives. Some of the facilitators have discovered that these issues may go beyond what they are trained to handle; in some cases, participants have been referred to mental health professionals for individual counseling or therapy.

4. Other Changes. Participants and facilitators cited a number of other ways in which outlooks change as a result of peer support. One of the facilitators noted that many participants develop a broader outlook on what type of behavior is appropriate or acceptable for a man. As one facilitator put it, "When we try to be men, we lose being human." Thus, a key goal of the curriculum is to help participants "redefine manhood."

For a few participants, peer support seemed to have a crucial effect on their willingness to come above ground, enter mainstream society, and deal with problems in a constructive manner. As one interviewee put it:

I learned...how he [another participant] dealt with problems as far as fines, police, and judicial stuff. You see, there's two types of people. Either you're gonna confront it, or you're gonna run. And I've always the type who runs. And he always confronted his, even if he didn't complete what he said he was going to do. I learned that its better for me to do the confrontation, to say what I can do and what I'm going to try to do, as opposed to just running away and telling them nothing. You know, make them look for me.

In Ohio, where groups tend to be racially mixed, the facilitators initially feared that racial issues would create tension in the group. In fact, few problems have emerged. One white participant said that peer support had substantially changed his view of African-American men:

I was always taught that black guys were cold-hearted bastards that didn't give a s-. The more I started listening to some of these guys who actually gave a s- about where their life was heading; it made a big, big difference. I said, "hey, these guys ain't bad. They've got problems just like I do." There was a couple of them in my class and it was just like I've known this guy all my life. And the more he talked about his problems, the more I talked about my problems, and then the next guy...this male bonding thing is pretty cool..Women, it comes natural. With guys its hard to open up, its that macho thing.

One of the facilitators said that, for African-American participants, one sign of change comes when a participant begins to realize that "you can't blame whites for your mishaps in life. You have to put your feelings aside and do what's best for the child."

D. Changing Behavior

The interviewees -- both participants and facilitators -- were quick to admit that opinions and actions can be very different; that people's behavior often does not conform to their own ideals. Nonetheless, most of the participants insisted that their behavior had also changed in specific ways since they had started peer support. The facilitators could also cite numerous specific examples of behavioral change they had witnessed.

These changes took a variety of forms, some of which were unexpected. For example, one New Jersey participant said that he had recently taken up reading again after a long hiatus which he attributed to depression and tension. Facilitators in Tennessee reported that many of the noncustodial parents change their personal appearance and grooming over the five-week period when peer support sessions meet. Other changes were more consistent with the attitudinal changes described above. A few participants described the behavioral changes as all-encompassing. One participant, who had been released from prison shortly before entering PFS, described himself this way:

I was always on the streets, stealing and robbing before I went to the penitentiary. So when I got out of the penitentiary, I figured, "I'm going to do the same thing over again." But then I got into [peer support] and I got to talking about my problems...it changed my life...I was wild and crazy...Now, since I've been through the program, it kind of slowed me down a bit. The only thing I do now is go to work, go home and stay with my kids, and sometimes go to the gym...I always had a problem with running the streets from sunup to sundown, and I slowed that down.

Many of the participants said they were seeing their children more regularly, and were more careful about what they did during visits. One participant described one of his goals as:

Spending quality time with my son. My son is in this generation where I got to spend money. Everything he ever wants, it costs money. And it made me feel bad. When he wanted this stuff, and I didn't have it. TV is bombarding him: "Dad, I want this, dad I want that" [and] I'm like, "I don't have it." He's like: "But you're my dad." So I learned how to start doing other things that TV don't bombard him with. Like taking him to the playground and just turning him loose...He enjoys doing it and I enjoy taking him and watching him...And I challenge him with his ABCs. I introduce it to him as a game.

Each of the facilitators described at least one participant who had seen his children for the first time in many years after urging by the group.

Other interviewees said they were more aware of the need to communicate with their children. As one put it:

My daughter, now when I listen to her, I hear her. Instead of me trying to express my opinions...instead of trying to make her see things my way, I'm wondering about how does she feel? How does she see things? Instead of me telling her what I want to do, maybe I should ask sometimes: How do you feel about this and that? Like getting her opinion instead of giving her one.

More than one interviewee said that the communication skills he had learned or refined in peer support, coupled with his newly-developed ability to think problems through calmly, had improved his relationship with a spouse or girlfriend. Facilitators report that several peer support participants have reconciled with the custodial parent after a long hiatus. One participant put it this way:

Being able to talk to other guys, everybody exposing their problems...I can talk to my wife better than I used to, tell her about how I feel about different things...I think its helped me open up more to her which has made our relationship better...We'd get in arguments when I was out of work...We'd be around the house together 24 hours a day and we'd start getting on each others nerves, drive each other crazy...It was getting real tense.

Several participants said that their family members had noticed major changes in their personalities since they had joined the group. The Ohio facilitators said that receiving appreciatory calls from participants' mothers or other family members was one of the most gratifying parts of their job.

Finally, several participants said that their new-found confidence, ability to tame their tempers, and desire to serve as role models for their children had helped motivate them to enter training or education programs, take jobs in the mainstream economy, and pay child support through the system. Without the motivation that peer support provides, many of these men would not have been willing to give employment and training services a chance, and these services would be much less likely to succeed. Other participants might have found jobs but would have had trouble retaining them or would still resist the idea of paying regular child support. As one Tennessee facilitator put it:

Peer support gets the men into the right frame of mind in order to go out and get the job skills and then eventually land the job. Because so many guys come in with so much baggage on the front end, if we tried to do pre-employment skills, we'd have guys quitting. They're so angry and so frustrated and have so many things that are a problem in their lives, they need...peer support to clear them up.

This suggests that the changes participants describe -- increased self-esteem, a greater willingness to solve problems constructively, an expanded notion of their role as fathers -- may be prerequisites for success in PFS employment activities and, ultimately, in the labor force.

Perhaps the single most powerful illustration of the potential of this process to change behavior can be seen in Dayton, where a group of peer support participants formed their own organization, Fathers Working With Fathers, that meets independently of the PFS program to advocate for the needs of noncustodial parents. The group has developed a set of by-laws, recruited a Board of Directors (that includes court officials), and is considering forming a small business. Members have met with and testified before state legislators and other elected officials. Many of the group's members still feel that they are treated unfairly by the CSE system, but they have chosen a constructive approach to deal with these concerns.

E. How Peer Support Works

When asked to describe the process by which peer support is able to help people make such profound changes, the participants usually referred to the power and intensity of the group experience. They said that interacting with a group of fathers in similar circumstances helped them see their own behavior in a different light. More than one participant used the analogy of a mirror in describing how peer support forces people to examine themselves. As one Tennessee participant put it:

When I sit alone and try to sort out things by myself, I have this tendency to tell myself the exact things I want to hear. But when I sit in a group of people, I have to become open-minded and it allows me to listen to someone else's point of view. I say: "Hey, I never would have told myself that." It challenges me to look at...the whole picture...If I can just step of outside myself for a little while, I can get a better perspective on what course of action I need to take...[its like] a mirror.

Others described a group problem-solving process that helps participants see alternative ways of approaching various issues in their lives. One interviewee said:

Everybody started opening themselves up to the group. And they were giving input, and another person could give input. And I think it would help the other person. One person may have had a total different outlook or viewpoint on one of the subjects that was brought up and everybody could put their input into it, and a lot of people changed their minds because of the input that the another person gave.

In many groups, the participants develop a common set of norms during early discussions, and then begin to impose these norms on resistent group members. This type of peer pressure, which can be quite intense at times, is often apparent when the group deals with an exercise in the curriculum that involves reacting to a hypothetical scenario: fathers who state that they would engage in some "negative" behavior in the given situation are chastised by the other members. Facilitators report numerous situations where group members have talked a participant out of a rash action, or talked someone into taking steps to help himself, like attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings or obtaining drug treatment. Finally, both participants and facilitators suggested that the program's ability to help noncustodial parents focus on their children is a key to its success. When PFS participants enter the program, they are typically angry and negative. Most love their children and want the best for them, but these positive feelings are obscured by intense hostility to the courts, the custodial parents, and society, all of which seem to be conspiring against them. For many, these feelings of powerlessness are closely related to their perception that racism hinders them at every turn. As a result, many have lost any motivation to give the mainstream economy and society a chance. As one facilitator put it, they are "conditioned to accept the conditions they were in."

The first affect of peer support is to calm the parents' anger and let them know that they are not alone; other noncustodial parents and the facilitators are "on their side." With cooler heads, they may be able to focus more clearly on their B feelings for their children, and begin to see how their behavior can affect their children's well-being. For example, they may realize that they can serve as a positive role model for their children by working steadily. Similarly, with the child as the focus, they may start to see, through discussions with other fathers in similar situations, that there are constructive ways to deal with custodial parents and "the system." They also may begin to understand that child support does affect their children's well-being, and that it is counterproductive to deny this assistance to their children because of a dispute with the custodial parent or because they think they are being treated unfairly by the system. Finally, they may learn concrete information about parenting, child development, and the child support enforcement system that helps them act on these new feelings.

F. The Limitations of Peer Support

While participants and facilitators agree that peer support can stimulate rapid and profound changes in many participants' outlooks and behavior, all admitted the challenge inherent in making these changes last. Participants spend only a limited amount of time in peer support, and many spend the rest of their lives in hostile environments that do not reenforce the program's message. These negative influences may include friends, neighbors, or family members. As one facilitator put it:

If you're changing your approach to life and your family...is not ready to make that change themselves, it won't last. You know that old saying: "You go to Rome, you act like a Roman." So, after a while, it can wear off.

Thus, the Tennessee facilitators saw a pressing need for an ongoing support group for peer support graduates. One of them said:

[During] that five weeks [of peer support], they have their strength because they've got the support of their peers, they've got the staff helping them...As long they're within that five weeks, when they go into their community, they know that there's going to be another day, that they're coming back tomorrow. That's going to give them renewed strength. After that five weeks is up [they say]: "What do I do now?"

Indeed, several of the New Jersey participants, who were about to complete a peer support cycle when interviewed, seemed concerned that the activity was ending. Several said they wished the group could continue to meet once a week. In Ohio, where participation tends to be open-ended, some participants continue to attend peer support for months, and seem reluctant to "let go." One Ohio participant, acknowledging the danger of a "relapse" described the following strategy:

I've explained it [peer support] to my fiancee and she understands it well. I gave her [the facilitator]'s card and just in case I happen to...fall back and slip just a little, she can call [the facilitator] and say "___ is doing such and such and you need to talk to him at the next meeting because he's not doing what he's supposed to be doing."

Unfortunately relapses are always possible because, in the final analysis, peer support cannot "solve" many of the problems participants face. The program may persuade one participant to face up to a legal problem, but he may have no access to an attorney. Another might agree to address his drug problem, but there may be no slots available in residential treatment programs in the community. Still another father may decide that he wants to work with the custodial parent to resolve a dispute over visitation in a constructive manner, but the custodial parent may not agree to mediate.

Perhaps most important, even with a B employment and training component, many of the participants face uphill battles as they confront a labor market that offers few good jobs for men with limited work histories, poor basic skills and, in many case, criminal records. It is perhaps not surprising that many of the participants who express B positive feelings about peer support are much less satisfied with the employment and training component. (Of course, it is also important to note that peer support typically requires a less intensive time commitment than employment and training activities and, as might be expected, is often perceived to be more "fun").

It is also clear that peer support does not affect all participants. Some fraction of those who enter a group drop out in the early days, while others stay in and "go through the motions" but remain largely unaffected. Several of the interviewees noted that "you get out what you're willing to put in" and said that, for some participants, peer support may "plant a seed" but does not stimulate real change because the individual is not ready. Facilitators suggest that some participants are simply too "comfortable" with their current lifestyle, which may be Bly supported by family members and peers. This is largely consistent with the assumption, discussed earlier, that peer support is intended to help participants build on and act on beliefs and desires that are already important to them when they enter the program. When this basic motivation is missing, it may be quite difficult for the program to generate real change.

This also may explain why, for some participants, even peer support can not soften their hostility to the child support enforcement system. Although they may have become more sympathetic to the notion of providing financial support -- and, in some cases, better able to understand the system -- several interviewees still saw the enforcement system as fundamentally unfair to noncustodial parents. For some successful participants another piece of evidence for this case came when they got jobs and began to have child support withheld from their paychecks. After deductions, their net pay was, in their view, grossly insufficient to support themselves and their new families. ⁽¹⁷⁾ Some suggested that the best option might be to return to the underground economy and make direct child support payments. When asked if he intended to stay employed, given the size of his take-home pay, one participant said:

Its hard to say. It's a dead end. It doesn't give you any incentive to do any better. Because the more you make, the more they take. There's going to have to be a stop because its not giving the guys no incentive. I'd rather just go in f---ing debt the rest of my life, [and then say]: "f- you, I'm dead -- now, who's gonna get it?" The welfare system still didn't get that money from me.

It was also clear that, even after completing peer support, many of the interviewees still did not acknowledge the link between their own failure to pay child support and the fact that their child was receiving welfare. Thus, they did not accept the legitimacy of the state's efforts to collect reimbursement for welfare expenditures, and did not see how paying child support through the system could help their children. These parents saw the need to support their children, but still preferred to make direct payments, reasoning that these would do most to help their child. One noncustodial parent explained his view of welfare:

Welfare wasn't created because fathers were making babies and they weren't taking care of them...Welfare was created because everyone in the United States didn't have a job and people needed to be taken care of...and the people made it the government's responsibility to take care of them.

Another said:

I knew my children would always be taken care of as long as she was receiving assistance. I paid my taxes through the years; that's what welfare is for.

This may be another situation in which there was no B groundwork on which to build. It would be difficult in the best of circumstances to persuade a noncustodial parent that the best way to improve his children's well-being is to send child support payments to the welfare department, which will then retain most of what he has paid. This task is doubly hard when the parent, perhaps coming from a family or community where public assistance receipt is quite common, does not enter the program with a B aversion to welfare. Without such a foundation, peer support's success in this area may be limited.

Nevertheless, on the positive side, a few of the interviewees said they had learned more about the child support enforcement system; one said that he now understood the need to "reimburse" the state for its welfare expenditures and another said that a key goal of PFS was to help participants stop being "a burden on the system." Others, including some of those quoted earlier, still did not approve of the CSE system, but said they were now willing to pay support through formal channels because they understood that resistance would create problems for their children. Some have argued that this is in fact the most important outcome: parents do not need to like paying support to the state -- just as most people do not like paying taxes -- but they must be willing to do so despite their negative feelings. Several interviewees admitted that the presence of the Parents' Fair Share program suggested that the system was starting to take their concerns more seriously, and wondered why such a program has not existed until now. Finally, the development of an organization like Fathers Working With Fathers in Dayton suggests that some noncustodial parents are dealing with their concerns about child support in a more constructive way.

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IV. Conclusions

Peer support has earned a place in the PFS model during Phase II of the demonstration. The component has been successful in almost every site, and has proved extremely valuable in binding participants to the PFS program. In some sites, particularly those where the employment and training component is less intensive, peer support has literally become the core of PFS.

It also seems clear that peer support has changed the outlooks and behavior of many participants. Although it is difficult to tell whether they will last, these changes appear to be prerequistes to success in the employment and training component and the labor market, and are necessary if the program hopes to generate an increase in formal child support payments. Finally, in several sites, peer support has helped to bring the PFS partner agencies together. By attending sessions and listening to the participants speak openly about their feelings, staff from different agencies have learned a great deal about the men and have begun to understand some of their frustrations. In a few sites, positive publicity generated by peer support may even be helping to change broader community views of noncustodial parents.

Endnotes

1. These included self esteem measures, whether the young father's parents worked when he was young, and the age when he first had sex. [Back To Text]

2. MDRC and Public/Private Ventures (P/PV) developed the curriculum as a cooperative project for use in two different demonstrations for disadvantaged fathers, PFS and a P/PV project for young unwed fathers. The first version of the curriculum, written for P/PV's Young Fathers Demonstration, was called Fatherhood Development and was authored by Jeffrey Johnson and Pamela Wilson. That curriculum was substantially revised by Eileen Hayes for Parents' Fair Share.

[Back To Text]

3. see, e.g., Selzer. This does not necessarily suggest that the relationship is causal; that is, that child support payments will rise if visitation increases. [Back To Text]

4. Recent research suggests that the relationship between father contact and child well-being is not straightforward. In fact, one study found that the level of contact between noncustodial parents and their children was unrelated to several important child outcomes. A later study by the same author also found no link between father contact and child outcomes; however, this study did find that children benefited from a close relationship with their father. (Furstenberg, 198 ) [Back To Text]

5. A longer version of the curriculum, incorporating material for up to 18 sessions, was made available in the fall of 1993.

[Back To Text]

6. As its name implies, the Responsible Fatherhood curriculum is designed for men, who have accounted for 97 percent of the PFS population during the pilot phase. MDRC recommended several options for female participants, including integrating them into predominantly-male peer support groups, holding separate groups for men and women, and referring women to existing support groups in the community. [Back To Text]

7. Two of the PFS sites, Ohio and Minnesota, include two counties. In Minnesota, the same facilitator runs peer support groups in both counties, and the component operates almost identically. In Ohio, the provider is different in each county and there are some differences in the component's implementation. Thus, at several points in this chapter, Butler and Montgomery County, Ohio are discussed separately. [Back To Text]

8. Part-way through the pilot, Michigan began a new approach in which Friend of the Court (child support enforcement) case managers and job club instructors employed by a local school district co-facilitated peer support groups. [Back To Text]

9. In Florida, peer support is provided by a private, nonprofit social services agency under contract, but the facilitators also act as case managers and employment counselors for PFS participants. [Back To Text]

10. Several members of this group later became PFS peer support facilitators themselves. [Back To Text]

11. Another training conference will be held prior to the beginning of Phase II. [Back To Text]

12. The Survival Skills curriculum focuses in part on job readiness training. [Back To Text]

13. In this site, modules of the curriculum often take 3 to 4 sessions to complete.[Back To Text]

14. Some of the sites have chosen not to operate open-entry peer support programs. Several strategies have been developed to prevent attrition while participants wait for a new cycle to begin. For example, in Tennessee, participants are placed into basic education activities during this period, and in New Jersey, they work individually with case managers. [Back To Text]

15. Each module of the curriculum includes several possible activities. Facilitators are encouraged to select the activity(ies) that would work best given the character of the participants in each group. [Back To Text]

16. As discussed in Chapter 3, the noncustodial parents who were interviewed for this chapter may not be typical of the broader population because they had completed (or almost completed) the peer support component. [Back To Text]

17. The guidelines used by states to calculate child support orders generally consider the noncustodial parent's income in setting the award. Some take a flat percentage of income at all levels. However, in some states, the percentage of income withheld for child support is not flat, and in fact tends to be highest for people earning from $10,000 to $20,000. In addition, some of these participants' orders may have been set during periods in the past when they were earning higher salaries, and have not been adjusted to reflect their new lower earnings. Finally, some participants owe child support for several children in more than one household; the size of the order in such a situation may be quite high relative to a low-wage job. [Back To Text]

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Last updated: 04/26/01