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Community
Successes
Featured
Articles:
Responsible Fatherhood
Summer Reading
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Did
You Know?
More
than half the decline in the U.S. child poverty rate from 1993 to
1997 has been attributed to the Earned Income Tax Credit and related
initiatives.
- News & Issues, winter 2003, National Center for Children
in Poverty
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Responsible
Fatherhood Promotes Strong and Self-Sufficient Families
By NAJA WILLIAMSON
naja@gafcp.org
During the
past decade the field of fatherhood has made significant progress toward
building an infrastructure to serve fathers and families in communities
nationwide. Recent initiatives to promote strong and self-sufficient families
have brought the issue of responsible fatherhood to the attention of the
American public.
The President's
recent welfare reform plan explicitly mentions the issue of responsible
fatherhood and revises a goal of the TANF programs encouraging the "formation
and maintenance of healthy two-parent families and responsible fatherhood."
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What
We Know about Fathers
According
to the National Center on Fathers and Families, a policy research
center at the University of Philadelphia, we know:
- Fathers
care, even if that caring is not shown in conventional ways. Fathers'
caring may assume different forms - from emotional commitment
to children's development to hands-on support in the home and
responsibility for child care.
- Fathers'
presence matters in terms of economic well-being, social support,
and child development.
- Joblessness
is a major impediment to family formation and father involvement.
When the paths to work are unavailable or inaccessible, many fathers
- particularly young fathers with few skills and few years of
schooling - either evade the responsibility for supporting their
children or turn to the underground economy to provide income.
- Existing
approaches to public benefits, child support enforcement, and
paternity establishment create obstacles and disincentives to
father involvement. Many young fathers, and the mothers of their
children, view paternity establishment and child support enforcement
activities with distrust, seeing them as punitive rather than
supportive of families.
- A
growing number of young fathers and mothers need additional support
to develop the vital skills to share the responsibility for parenting.
- The
transition from biological father to committed parent has significant
developmental implications for young fathers and is often incomplete
and problematic.
- Intergenerational
beliefs and practices within families of origin significantly
influence the behaviors of young parents. Their families often
do not have the resources or desire to assist young men in becoming
better parents.
Resources
Sylvester,
Kathleen and Reich, Kathy. Restoring Fathers to Families and
Communities: Six Steps for Policymakers. Social Policy Action
Network, 2000. Available for free from the Annie E. Casey Foundation
or at www.aecf.org/publications/fathers.pdf
This
guide provides state and local officials, businesses, community-based
organizations and the faith community with specific information
about what they can do, legislatively and administratively, to help
fathers - especially low-income, unwed men - to help their children.
The publication lays out a detailed six-step strategy along with
actions steps that provide ideas to help state officials and policymakers
achieve each key step.
Sylvester,
Kathleen and Reich, Kathy. Making Fathers Count: Assessing the
Progress of Responsible Fatherhood Efforts. Social Policy Action
Network, 2002. Available for free from the Annie E. Casey Foundation
or at www.aecf.org/publications/data/fatherhood.pdf
This
report is intended for researchers, advocates, practitioners, and
funders in the fatherhood field. It is also written as a call to
action for leaders of social services organizations and public agencies
that work traditionally only with women and children. The report
tells why fathers are critical to the success of their efforts and
how to integrate them into their work. The document contains a chronology
of the emergence of the fatherhood field and includes a list of
resource organizations.
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Research
supports this goal by showing that the presence of two committed, involved
parents can contribute to better school performance, reduced substance
abuse, less crime and delinquency, fewer emotional and other behavioral
problems, less risk of abuse of neglect, and lower risk of teen suicide
for children and youth.
How Georgia
is Supporting Responsible Fatherhood
The Georgia
Fatherhood Social Services program provides help to any parent who owes
child support but has barriers that make payment difficult or impossible.
The vision of the Georgia Fatherhood Services Network (GFSN) is "to
promote and facilitate the development and application of resources for
comprehensive community-level services for Responsible Fatherhood and
Family Formation." The Network provides guidance toward good outcomes
for disconnected fathers and families.
The key is
to put this vision into action through communities by developing or strengthening
local coalitions comprised of faith groups, community-based organizations,
government and business, and individual citizens that work together for
positive change.
In conjunction
with GFSN, The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta Inc. and the Annie
E. Casey Foundation have invited community-based groups such as Family
Connection and state partners - including Technical and Adult Education,
the Department of Labor, the Department of Corrections, Pardons and Parole,
Mental Health, Child Support Enforcement, and Georgia State University
- to participate in planning for a community-oriented summit around responsible
fatherhood and healthy family formation.
Currently,
the partners are refining a responsible fatherhood model with a focus
on improving child well-being. Once the model is refined, it will be piloted
in several communities statewide, and the results will be shared.
Your insights
and community success stories can help champion responsible fatherhood
and efforts toward healthy family development. Please share your community
successes with others by submitting the details to communications@gafcp.org.
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