Do Dads Matter? Child Welfare Outcomes for Father-Identified Families
Research indicates the benefits of father involvement in the lives of children, particularly noncustodial fathers and how father absenteeism has negative impacts on child outcomes, such as cognitive development and educational gains. Policy initiatives on the national and state levels have therefore made attempts to further engage fathers in the lives of their children. For instance, the US Department of Health and Human Services started the Fatherhood Initiative to promote fathers' involvement.This has also been true of the child welfare system. While the child welfare system has historically focused on engaging mothers as typical custodial parents and mother reunification, child welfare agencies have adopted a cocurrent goal approach of trying to reunify children with their mothers, as well as, identifying and locating fathers or other noncustodial parent. Attempts to identify and engage fathers have been shown to be successful in child welfare. One study found 62% of fathers agreed to participate in permanency planning once identified.
The above article attempts to add to available literature and information, by examining the potential importance of father involvement in child welfare cases. The study uses secondary data analysis from the first evaluation of Family Treatment Drug Courts to examine whether cases that identify fathers have differences in time in foster care, time to permanent placement, reuinification, and use of kinship permanency.
The study found that in child welfare cases where a father was identified, children spent more time with a parent and less time in foster care. The study found that father-identified cases result in more reunifications with a parent than cases where a father was not identified. The study found no difference in time to achieve permanancy between cases that identified a father and those that did not. The study also found no difference in kinship placement where parent's rights had been terminated between father-identified cases and cases without father identification.
What do you think of these results? What role do you think that fathers may play in child welfare cases. I will say that I was surprised that identification of the father did not increase kinship placement where parent's rights had been terminated. I would have estimated that the prescence of more kinship relatives would have increased the likelihood of this occuring.
I am interested in a few things related to this article. First, I am interested in how difficult it is to receive a response from fathers, when traditionally they are only being hunted down by Child Support Enforcement and how that might tie in to the statistics.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I believe that some of the reason why kinship placements do not increase is because of the likelihood that one or both parents has not been present since the child was very young. The extended family on the estranged side probably does not have any connection to the child, and therefore may not feel responsible. I have also seen a lot of animosity directed towards the child in these situations when half of the family feels wronged by the parent or feels a lot of ill-will towards the parent that somehow carries over to the child.
It is a creative reform to introduce father's role in child welfare population, which suggest that we should make more efforts working with father in reunification work. However, I do think father and mother play a different role in a child's socialization. As attachment theory indicates that the attachment relationship is largely shaped and influenced by mother's sensitivity and responsitivity during a person's 0-3 period. It would be helpful for our research to clarify the different effects of father and mother's conditions (like mental health needs, parenting) on the child's well-being, specifically for child involved in child welfare system.
ReplyDeleteJamari- Thank you for sharing. I'm sorry we didn't touch on this today because I do find this topic to be relevant to our discussions. Perhaps fatherhood presence is a proxy for relationship quality, and rather than merely identifying the involvement of a father, we can start to build stronger attachments.
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