Understanding Parent Involvement in the FOCUS Program for Fathers

• In Event: 2-013 - Nonresident Father Families: Correlates, Family Processes, and Interventions

Integrative Statement

Introduction: Fathers prove vital to the well-being of their children (Cabrera, Volling, & Barr, 2018). Although federal support for healthy marriages and responsible fatherhood began in 2005, fatherhood programs administered through child welfare are a relatively recent development (Tollestrup, 2018). These programs are important to family well-being; research shows that fathers not completing engaged fathering treatments are more likely to lose custodial rights to their child (Gordon, Oliveros, Hawes, Iwamoto, & Rayford, 2012). Limited research has examined what factors predict program completion. Higher intention to participate in a fathering program was associated with higher parenting self-efficacy in one research study (Salari & Filus, 2017). Two key factors affecting father participation are child conduct problems and age (Tully et al., 2017). This study will examine outcomes of the Fathers Offering Children Unfailing Support (FOCUS) program for nonresidential fathers referred by Child Protective Services. Specifically, we hypothesize that fathers completing the program will have more self-efficacy, parenting skills, and coparenting skills than a comparison group of fathers who have not yet begun the program. We expect income, work status, age, and the father-mother relationship to affect program completion.
Methods: Participants reside in an urban county and two adjacent suburban counties in the Southwest. Father reports of education indicated that 48.1% graduated from high school; 20.2% obtained a GED, 3.3% completed an apprenticeship, and 25.1% graduated from college. Over half of the fathers were married to the mother of their child, in a marriage relationship (29.1%) or separation (37.9%). Fathers reported their race/ethnicity as White (46.1%), Black (26.7%), and Latino (20.3%). New Day Services collected demographic data which was later merged with program completion data. A separate dataset with the Father Involvement Scale was completed during the first week of class by 377 fathers. A different group of fathers who finished the FOCUS program completed the Father Involvement Scale and retrospective items (N = 363) (See Table 2). One retrospective item was, “Before taking FOCUS, rate the quality of your parenting skills.” This method of measurement is preferable to control for response shift bias design (Little, Chang, Gorrall, Waggenspack, & Fukuda, in press).
Results: All three subscales of the Father Involvement Scale were significant for the retrospective pretest-posttest analyses shown in Table 2 and the comparison group-posttest analyses. Comparison group-posttest t-values were 7.69, p <.001 for self-efficacy; 6.99, p <.001 for coparenting, and 3.97, p <.001 for parenting skills. Although these values were significant, they are considerably lower than those of comparisons in the retrospective pretest-posttest design. This indicates that a response shift has occurred in self-perception and understanding of positive fathering for those who completed the program. Only age and current work status were significant predictors of program completion, with older, fully employed men more likely to complete the FOCUS program (See Table 3).
Conclusions: In conclusion, the FOCUS program appears to help fathers understand how to be effectively involved in their children’s lives. The program may further assist fathers by exploring ways to enhance their employment opportunities.

Authors

• M. Angela Nievar, University of North Texas
  Presenting Author

• Matt Rodriguez, University of Maryland
  Non-Presenting Author

• Suhasini Ramisetty-Mikler, University of North Texas
  Non-Presenting Author

• Elias Mpofu, University of North Texas
  Non-Presenting Author