• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

The Jordan Institute for Families

The UNC School of Social Work

  • About
    • Legacy
    • Approach
    • Team
    • News
    • Donate
    • Contact Us
  • For Families
  • Programs
    • Data Informed Policy & Practice
      • Indicators for Success
      • Maternal and Child Home Visiting
      • Early Childhood Systems
    • Community Initiatives
      • The 4th Trimester Project
      • Refugee Mental Health and Wellness Initiative
      • Strengthening Military-Connected Families
      • Increasing Family Wealth through EITC
      • Perinatal Incarceration
    • Sharing Expertise
      • Life Course Intervention Research Network
  • Learn & Act
    • Social Justice Action
    • Carolina Social Workers Action for Voting
    • NC Child Fatality Prevention
    • Institute on Implementation Practice
  • Events
    • All Upcoming Events
    • Past Events Archive
    • Event Request Form
  • Blog

Subscribe to Updates from JIF

Subscribe to our newsletter to get regular updates. We respect your privacy and you may unsubscribe at any time.


Email(Required)
Name
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Search The Jordan Institute for Families

Fatherhood 2.0

January 29, 2018 by Paul Lanier

Fathers in North Carolina, and across the United States, are experiencing a slow, but revolutionary upgrade in roles, expectations, and opportunities as parents and partners. The father version that was most common in the family market of the 20th century was designed for a different time, with functional emphasis on family protection and wage earning. In low-income and minority families, the father was largely seen as an optional upgrade, as scores of young fathers were incarcerated during the war on drugs. Policies that did exist to support families were often as focused on preserving traditional family values, than supporting the families struggling to provide for their children in the context of poverty. Indeed, the very presence of a father-figure in the home was a barrier to support.

But those were policies of the past, for the fathers of the past. Today, more men than ever before are in caregiving roles. Father-figures represent many different relationships and arrangements; single fathers, non-resident biological fathers, LGBT fathers, foster parents, grandfathers, and uncles. The Fatherhood 2.0 men all share two main features: 1) a strong desire to provide a safe, stable, and nurturing relationship for their children, and 2) involvement with services, systems, and societies that are still stuck in the past. Fathers in active caregiving roles are engaged with medical providers, home visitors, early childhood programs, educational settings, and child welfare systems that were designed for the prior version. Not only are these settings not “father-friendly”, they are not equipped to interface with today’s fatherhood technology. For example on some program enrollment forms, there is not a “father” option for taking contact information. There are many examples of ways to improve messaging to include fathers.

As a social work researcher, this is a huge opportunity for social change. However, change is hard, even when it appears to be a “win-win” for all involved. We know that engaged fathers can uniquely improve outcomes for children, and can provide a huge boost for their partners and co-parents, but we know little about how to upgrade these systems to actively engage fathers. This is what we tried to accomplish with the WAGES-UNC Fatherhood Support Study. This study was funded through the Fatherhood Research & Partnership Network.  We partnered with one of the best Head Start programs in the state (WAGES), with a strong commitment to fatherhood involvement, and tried to better understand how to engage them in support services. We used an existing parent support program model, Circle of Parents®, and rigorously evaluated the outcomes. You can read the full report here. Although there were some positive results for fathers, engagement with all fathers was a challenge. Our research-practice partnership is now approaching this problem from a community-based participatory research approach; asking fathers to design and implement a model that they develop tailored to the needs of fathers in Wayne County, North Carolina.

Fatherhood 2.0 programs need to be functional, efficient, and effective. Perhaps the best way to develop and test these programs is to make sure we keep the “end-user” at the center of our design efforts.

SHARE:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn

Filed Under: Quick Takes Tagged With: Fatherhood

Paul Lanier

About Paul Lanier

Paul Lanier, MSW, PhD is an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Social Work, where he teaches courses in social policy and program evaluation. Dr. Lanier is an expert in developing, evaluating, and scaling-up evidence-based prevention programs in child welfare, mental health, and early childhood systems. His recent work has focused on engaging and supporting low-income families with young children, particularly new fathers.

Footer

Contact

The Jordan Institute for Families
School of Social Work
UNC-Chapel Hill
325 Pittsboro St., CB#3550
First & Second Floors
Tate, Turner Kuralt Building
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3550
919-843-2455
sarah_verbiest@unc.edu

Connect

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

From the Blog

Social Workers Making Policy

Copyright © 2023 The Jordan Institute for Families · UNC School of Social Work · All Rights Reserved · Website by Tomatillo Design