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NCOFF Databases Comments about the databases? |
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The Systemic Barriers to Father Involvement Library represents the breadth of research surrounding the issues identified in NCOFF's Core Learning IV: Existing approaches to public benefits, child support enforcement, and paternity establishment operate to create obstacles and disincentives to father involvement. The Library collapses literature from a variety of disciplines and domains. In creating the Library and the encompassing Database, NCOFF's goal is to compile into one on-line service the broad array of interdisciplinary research and program reports and to make these items accessible to the widest audience of stakeholders in children's development including practitioners, researchers, policymakers, educators, community members, and parents themselves. The works cited include empirical, conceptual, and clinical research which ranges in depth of analysis and whose intended audiences vary. Each library in the Database is updated regularly through searches in libraries and contact with different agencies, individuals, and organizations. Most of the research studies and reports cited are located through the University of Pennsylvania's libraries. Studies and reports are identified using databases in education, psychology, sociology, economics, anthropology, and social work, among others. A variety of keywords are used in these searches: "Never-married parents," "paternity establishment," "programs and intervention," "teenage parents," "unemployment," and so forth. As a second strategy, reference lists of articles abstracted and annotated are reviewed to identify additional studies or materials. Third, other research studies are identified in and obtained from various centers and agencies which address issues such as poverty, child development, child welfare, and family support. Fourth, authors send soon-to-be-published drafts of studies directly to NCOFF. Fifth, studies are identified through government reports. The studies described in the library are obtained from books, journal articles, theses, dissertations, reports, working papers, and conference proceedings. In addition, several other approaches are used, e.g., Internet links with research institutes, publishers, and associations. The Systemic Barriers Library encompasses research on the difficulties that fathers face in the following areas: (1) paternity establishment; (2) the child support system; (3) social service agencies; and (4) the work environment. In addition, some authors address the lack of research on fathers and the presence of faulty assumptions about men and fathering within the literature. The issues around paternity establishment have not been widely investigated. Establishing paternity is an issue for unmarried families, particularly when mothers seek formal child support or public assistance. The literature on this issue has emphasized the need to ensure paternity establishment to supplement, if not recapture, AFDC funds. Research reveals that poor mothers, however, are unlikely to adjudicate paternity. One source of mothers' hesitance, according to several reports, has been their understanding that the welfare system will seize child support in excess of $50 per month. Another significant barrier to paternity establishment is a lack of disseminated information about the process of establishing paternity. Many unmarried fathers simply do not know who to contact, what paternity establishment entails, and what its benefits are for children. Some clinicians discuss the social service agency as a good point of entry. Moreover, social agencies could provide needed information on the benefits to children of paternity establishment and father involvement. Other researchers and clinicians advocate appealing to unmarried parents when the father's emotional connection is likely to be at its highest: e.g., at the time of birth. A number of studies testify to the success of hospital-based paternity establishment programs. Child support reform has been explored more extensively within the context of welfare reform. The primary systemic barrier to father involvement appears to be a sense of distrust toward fathers that pervades the child support system. Fathers are assumed to be uninterested in their children's lives. Father involvement is equated typically in this literature with financial support and examined almost exclusively in terms of fathers' willingness to pay. Willingness to pay has been associated with remarriage rates; the relationship with the former partner, pre- and postdivorce relationships with children (of divorce); father's income/educational level; race; and custody arrangement. Family courts tend to hand down custody and child support decisions in a punitive manner. For instance, fathers are served a summons to appear in court to begin the process of paternity adjudication and child support. Many fathers, particularly young fathers of color, associate these procedures with criminal cases. Alongside the general distrust of fathers that pervades the child support system, many fathers (and mothers) distrust these institutions, approaching them only as a last resort. Although scant, some research reveals that unmarried fathers who fail to make child support payments are interested in their children's welfare and make in-kind contributions, e.g., diapers, clothes, food, and baby-sitting. A significant body of clinical literature identifies a bias against fathers and in favor of mothers within social service agencies at all levels. Family agencies and programs either ignore the significance of father participation altogether or include fathers as auxiliary support for mother participants. However, many fathers, particularly teen and unmarried fathers, appear interested, but uninformed about parenting, child development, and their procreative and custody rights. African American men have been significantly shunned in family services. Many authors recommend a redefinition of the mission of social services that would include active outreach to young, unmarried fathers and would better inform practitioners of the cultural issues that govern father interaction with agencies and within families. Some authors have addressed the need for more "father-friendly" employment benefits. Single fathers report difficulty balancing work and family responsibilities given the inflexibility of current work standards. The research on single fathers notes the primary importance of work schedule flexibility in balancing work and family. Fathers, particularly African American fathers, are understudied within the empirical literature. With more indepth analysis of the issues surrounding father involvement, the social science field could better assist practitioners and policymakers who make the decisions that ultimately affect the lives of these men.
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National Center on Fathers and Families | University of Pennsylvania | Graduate School of Education | 3700 Walnut Street, Box 58 | Philadelphia, PA 19104-6216 |
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Date Posted: 9/25/97; Date Revised: 8/28/99 | http://www.ncoff.gse.upenn.edu/ | NCOFF Copyright, (c) 1999 | National Center on Fathers and Families |
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