Supporting Father Involvement
Category
Family Support
Child's Age
0-1 years, 1-2 years, 2-3 years, 3-4 years, 4-5 years
Participant
Children, Parents/Guardian
Languages
English, Spanish, Mandarin
Brief Description
Designed to serve both fathers and co-parents/parenting figures to ensure continuity and whole family involvement. The goals include strengthening the father's involvement in the family, promoting healthy child development, and preventing key factors implicated in child abuse by strengthening the relationship between the parents.
Expected Impact
With an average rate of attendance of 80% for the 16 2-hour sessions, one can typically expect the following outcomes, based on the research.
- Reduction in parent-reported psychological distress
- Reduction in parent-reported stress (average of 18% reduction in parenting stress scores)
- Improved relationship quality
- Reduction in couple conflicts and violence or reports of violence in the home
- Reduction in harsh parenting
- Increase in father involvement
- Reduction in children’s problem behaviors (also considered positive if the child’s behaviors remain stable)
- Parental depression symptoms
- Increase in parental attachment security
- Increase in stability of couple’s relationship satisfaction (versus decrease among control group couples)
Core Components for Model Fidelity
- Overall Program Components: Components, which increase parents’ engagement, understanding, and development, are introduced in the following order:
- Case Manager Outreach
- Introductory Interview
- Program Evaluation Begins
- Eating Together
- Group Sessions: Each group can support 4-16 families, with the optimal size being 6-8. All groups are cohort style. Each meeting begins with an open conversation about the successes and difficulties of the week, including how parents’ homework went. They then move onto the structured session which can include brief didactic segments, followed by activities to help the members practice skills and engage in relevant discussions. At the end of the session, they are given their homework assignment for the next week. There are separate curricula for the fathers-only program and the couples/coparents program. Two of the 16 sessions are held separately where the fathers meet with the male leader and the coparents meet with the female leader. The youngest child attends with the fathers during these two sessions.
- Organizational Father-Friendliness Assessment
- Program Evaluation: continued examination of the data from almost 1,000 couples to support the preparation of new research reports, with minimal basic data gathered by new adopters of SFI for evaluation purposes.
- Curriculum Content Overview: For more information, contact the purveyor.
- The Individual
- Parent-Child Relationships
- The Couple/Co-parenting Partners
- Parent-Child Relationships
- Three Generations
- The Couple/Coparents
- Outside the Family (Stresses and Social Supports)
- Individual
- Tying Together Five Domains
- The 5 Domains
- Family member characteristics
- 3-generational expectations and relationship patterns
- Quality of parent-child relationships
- Quality of relationship between parents
- Balance of stressors and the families’ social supports
NOTE: Although there is a given curriculum, much of the discussions are parent-initiated, which helps the group be curated towards the members—see SFI Fidelity Checklist for more information.
Languages Materials are Available in
English, Spanish, Mandarin
Delivery Mode
Group Sessions: In person or virtual.
Dosage
Group Sessions: 16 weeks of 2-hour group meetings.
Infrastructure for Implementation
Materials: A manual describing best implementation practices when needing to offer the groups online is available, as well as a guide for standard in-person implementation.
Space: The location must have a meeting room large enough for all participating adults and ideally a separate space for childcare.
Other: Childcare should be provided by either program/agency staff or as a separate childcare hire. Groups typically meet during dinnertime with a meal provided.
Staffing Requirements
It is recommended that 2 experienced clinicians/trained facilitators lead the meetings.
- Male-Female teams
- One has (at least) Master’s level clinical training and/or experience in counseling/leading psychoeducation groups for individuals, parents, or families **Can contract a clinician**
- Must be supervised during first year of implementation by an experienced trainer who serves as a consultant (provided by SFI and available for a large initial training course serving multiple sites but not for each individual county). **Not an FTE**
- If group leaders are not licensed mental health professionals, a licensed supervisor must be available for consultation in the event of clinical emergences. **Not an FTE and not provided by SFI**
Any SFI staff person could serve in the program director role: case managers or group leaders, for example. Childcare providers also could be case managers. Group leaders and case managers must be separate roles; these positions cannot be consolidated.
The FTEs for these roles depend on the size of the program (target number of groups per year). No role generally holds a 1.0 FTE. Case managers and group leaders generally have been .25-.50 FTE.
Case managers assist with referral to other community resources as needed.
Childcare can be offered by staff at the agency offering the program or can be an additional hire. Supervised early education graduate students have been used.
NCPC strongly recommends staff receive training in the Standards of Quality for Family Support and Strengthening. Contact Positive Childhood Alliance North Carolina (PCANC) or National Family Support Network (NFSN) for more information, training, and certification.
Training for Model Fidelity
Available virtually or in person as provided by the Supporting Father Involvement (SFI) Development Team (as well as the year of required supervision).
Brazelton Touchpoints Center offers information sessions for interested partnerships. The session would likely be 90 minutes to two hours, where attendees would talk about the curriculum, training logistics, implementation, and mentoring/team support.
Contact Information
https://supportingfatherinvolvementsfi.com/
Philip Cowan: Founder; Professor of Psychology Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley; pcowan@berkeley.edu, 510-526-2586
Carolyn Pape Cowan: Founder; ccowan@berkeley.edu, 510-526-2586
Marsha Kline Pruett: Founder; mpruett@smith.edu, 203-887-7965
Kyle Pruett: Founder; kyle.pruett@yale.edu, 203-887-7985
Cost Estimates
Training, consultation, and evaluation costs are $12,500 for a 4-member team (2 is required). Rates for a larger team can vary from $15,000-$30,000, depending upon how many trainers are recommended for the group size. Rates vary on a sliding scale and lower fees are applied to small agencies serving underprivileged populations. Hourly rates for consultation/supervision after the initial training are available upon request.
Purpose Service Code (PSC)
5505 - Parent Education
Program Identifier (PID)
Supporting Father Involvement
Minimal Outputs for NCPC Reporting
FY 24-25:
- Number of parents/guardians participating†
†Select Family Support Programs data collection will include basic demographic data for parent/guardian participants including Race, Ethnicity. Data on interpretation and transportation will be collected when appropriate.
Minimal Outcomes for NCPC Reporting
FY 24-25:
- Increase in positive parenting practices
Minimal Measures for NCPC Reporting
FY 24-25:
- ALABAMA PARENTING* - SFI Version, repeated as pre/post
NCPC Evidence Categorization
Evidence Informed- 4 publications summarized below. 2 randomized control trials with control groups and 2 international implementations with no control groups. Additional publications can be found here. Three of the four studies reviewed were conducted by the Pruetts and the Cowans, the founders of the program.
Research Summary
The four most recent publications on Supporting Father Involvement include two international implementations of SFI,1,2 an RCT,3 and a further investigation into the RCT’s findings.4 Three of the four articles were primarily authored by the founders of SFI; the fourth article was co-authored by two founders. Participants included mothers and fathers from high-risk and high-need communities, families identifying as BIPOC-AALANA, diverse family formations, differing levels of parental education status, and families referred by the Child Welfare System. Results from these studies indicated that families receiving SFI reported a decline in couple conflict, violent problem solving, and harsh parenting. Father involvement improved, with most studies reporting a significant improvement, and children’s behaviors stabilized or improved. Other trends included an increase in the number of parents who moved from unemployed to employed and who reported less dysfunctionality in their relationships with their children.
- ^ See Casey et al. (2017). This international implementation study of Parents as Partners (PasP) in the United Kingdom sampled mothers and fathers from high-risk and high-need communities. Populations sampled include racial/ethnic minorities, diverse family formations, and differing levels of parental education status. The average age of families’ youngest child was 5.4 years, ranging from 6 months to 11 years. PasP was delivered according to protocol set in the United States. Measures included questionnaires, interviews, the CORE-OM, Couple Communication Questionnaire, QMI, Who Does What?, and SDQ. Results indicated significant decreases in the use of violent problem-solving methods, children’s behavioral problems, parent-reported stress levels, and conflicts between parents, especially regarding childrearing. Parents also reported improvements in their relationship quality and those who indicated “low” father involvement at baseline demonstrated significant changes post-treatment. There was also an increase in the number of parents who moved from unemployed to employed.
- ^ See Pruett, Gillette, & Pruett (2016). This international implementation study of PasP in Canada sampled primarily Caucasian, middle class families who opted in to receive treatment with their youngest child (average age 2.5 years, ranging from newborn to 10 years). Research measures included CES-D, Who Does What?, Parenting Stress Index, Quality of Marriage Index, Couple Communication Questionnaire, and Child Adaptive Behavior Inventory. Results indicated stability in relationship quality, fewer reports of conflict and violent/avoidant problem-solving, and decreased reports of parenting-related stress. Parents also reported a significant increase in father involvement and reported that their relationships with their children were significantly less dysfunctional.
- ^ See Pruett et al. (2019). This RCT sampled parents whose youngest child was an average of 2 years 11 months old (ranging from 1 month to 12 years). Populations sampled include racial/ethnic minorities, diverse family formations, and families referred by Child Welfare System. Families were randomly assigned to a control group (no treatment) or treatment group. The treatment group completed 16 weeks of SFI group meetings and both groups completed assessments at baseline, 2 months after the intervention ended for treatment group or 6 months after baseline for control group, and 18 months after entering the study. Results indicated a significant decline in couple conflict, violent problem solving, and harsh parenting in higher risk families in the treatment group. These harsh parenting behaviors were significantly related to issues with children’s behavior, so the improved parenting behaviors were also related to improved child behavior even a year after the program’s end. A significant increase in income was reported for SFI participants, with the greatest gain among the lowest income families.
- ^ See Cowan et al. (2019). This study further investigated findings from Pruett et al. (2019) by examining attachment styles and psychological symptoms as mediating links between couple conflict and negative parenting. See population and methods above. Results indicated that SFI was significantly related to lower scores of parent’s attachment insecurity and decreased couple conflict, which relates to improved or stabilized child behavior outcomes.
Researched Population
- Parents/caregivers of children ages 0-11 years, typically identifying as low-income, working-, or middle-class families
- Married, non-married, separated, or cohabitating couples
- Wide variety of races/ethnicities
- Same-sex, interracial, and two-generation nurturing pairs (e.g., the father and grandmother)
- Single parents with coparenting partners
- Families that have a history with the child welfare system
- Previously incarcerated fathers looking to reunite with their children and the mothers of their children
Clearinghouse and Compendium References
California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare- rated 1 Well-Supported by Research Evidence
Casey, P., Cowan, P. A., Cowan, C. P., Draper, L., Mwamba, N., & Hewison, D. (2017). Parents as partners: A U.K. trial of a U.S. couples‐based parenting intervention for at‐risk low‐income families. Family Process, 56, 598-606. https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12289
Cowan, P. A., Cowan, C. P., Pruett, M.K., & Pruett, K. (2019). Fathers’ and mothers’ attachment styles, couple conflict, parenting quality, and children’s behavior problems: An intervention test of mediation. Attachment and Human Development, 21(5), 532-550. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616734.2019.1582600
Pruett, M. K., Cowan, P. A., Cowan, C. P., Gillette, P., & Pruett, K. D. (2019). Supporting Father Involvement: An intervention with community and child welfare-referred couples. Family Relations, 68(1), 51-67. https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12352
Pruett, M.K., Gillette, P., & Pruett, K. D. (2016). Supporting father involvement to promote co-parent, parent and child outcomes in a Canadian context. Psychology and Psychological Research International Journal, 1(1). https://medwinpublishers.com/PPRIJ/PPRIJ16000111.pdf
Local Partnerships Currently Implementing
Local Partnerships in purple have adopted Supporting Father Involvement. Local Partnership contact information can be found here.