Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Responsible fatherhood programs represent one effort to promote father engagement and improve outcomes for children living in single-parent households. Emerging in the late 1990s, fatherhood programs have evolved from a narrow focus on financial stability and support to a broader agenda that includes father involvement and relationship and parenting skills (Tollestrup, 2018). Despite the proliferation of programs, the fatherhood field continues to struggle with limited funding, short-term grants, and cuts during tough economies (Klempin & Mincy, 2011–2012).

This paper focuses on the facilitators and barriers to conducting effective state-level initiatives to include fathers in policies and programs dealing with families and children. We focus on state level initiatives because states have a great deal of autonomy in formulating family policy and making funding decisions, and state-level initiatives have the potential to overcome several weaknesses in the fatherhood field: service instability, turnover and lost opportunities due to program reliance on short-term grants for funding; limited policy reach due to the political weakness of programs that typically advocate for fatherhood services; and the inability of isolated service programs to address the many needs of low-income fathers (Klempin & Mincy, 2011–2012). Finally, state-level initiatives may be promising ways to address the fragmentation in family policy and achieve needed coordination across multiple human services agencies (Cowan & Cowan, 2018).

The study is based on a qualitative assessment of 11 states that received small ($10,000) planning grants from the Fatherhood Research and Practice Network (FRPN) to engage stakeholders in activities aimed at enhancing father inclusion in state programs and policies dealing with children and families. Begun in 2013 and funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Planning Research and Evaluation, FRPN designed the state planning grant initiative to promote system change at the state level and inform the development of effective policy initiatives in the future.