Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

In spite of half a century of early childhood programs that recognize the critical roles of parents, fathers have been largely underrepresented in these efforts. In this study, we describe the development and initial evaluation of a video-coaching program for low-income fathers, Filming Interactions to Nurture Development (FIND-F). FIND-F builds upon the existing literature by directly targeting fathers’ responsive parenting through in-home coaching based on videos of naturally occurring interactions. More specifically, a FIND-F coach visits the father and child in the father’s home once a week for 6 weeks. In each session, the coach takes a short film of the father and child engaging in everyday activities, such as playing with toys or eating a meal. Next, the film is analyzed and clips are selected to highlight strengths in the father-child interaction. These clips are then reviewed with the father the following week. The aim of this intervention is to reinforce the types of positive interactions that are hypothesized to lead to increased behavioral and psychological engagement and decreased parenting stress for fathers as well as fewer behavior problems in their children.

Methods

Fifteen fathers with children between 6 and 36 months of age were recruited from two home visiting programs serving low-income families. A pretest-posttest micro-trial was employed to establish evidence of feasibility and conduct an initial evaluation of FIND-F’s theory of change. Changes from pretest to posttest in fathers’ parenting skills, fathers’ parenting stress, fathers’ involvement, and children’s behavior problems were assessed through a series of paired samples t-tests.

Results

Of the 15 recruited fathers, 12 (80%) completed all six sessions of FIND-F. Fathers’ ages ranged from 22 to 56 years (M=34.75). Races and ethnicities of fathers included Hispanic (n=7), African American (n=2), Caucasian (n=2), and mixed Caucasian/Native American (n=1). Two fathers had less than a high school education, seven had a high school diploma or GED, and three completed education beyond high school. All fathers were living with a partner; seven (58.33%) were married. All fathers were working either full-time (n=9) or part-time (n=3), with 80% reporting work on weekends and 50% reporting irregular work schedules. Children’s ages ranged from 9 to 35 months (M=22.67); four (33.33%) were female and eight (66.67%) were male.

Analyses of pre-post data supported many relations proposed in the intervention’s theory of change. After 6 weeks of FIND-F, fathers’ positive parenting practices significantly increased (Cohen’s d=.90*) and all fathers reported decreases in parenting stress (d=-1.31**). Fathers who had experienced high levels of childhood adversity also showed gains in psychological (d=1.20*) and behavioral involvement (d=.96**) and decreases in their children’s behavior problems (d=-1.80*).

These findings suggest that FIND-F may be a promising mechanism for supporting low-income fathers’ responsive parenting skills within the context of home visiting. Based on these encouraging results, we are currently conducting a randomized controlled trial with fifty fathers to better understand whether, how, and under what conditions FIND-F is effective. Preliminary results of this randomized controlled trial will also be presented.