Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Home visitation programs primarily serve mothers and their infants, with few resources and services for fathers. Healthy Start, a home visitation program serving low-income parents, has prioritized father engagement. Yet, little is known about how to effectively engage fathers in such services. Our university research team partnered with local Healthy Start programs to implement a text messaging program called Text4Dad for new fathers. Text4Dad allows mentors to send tailored text messages to fathers using an interactive texting software platform. This presentation focuses on describing a multi-stage process for developing and testing Text4Dad.

Method

We used a mixed-methods approach to develop Text4Dad: (1) focus group and interview data with low-income men to determine content areas most relevant to new fathers; (2) online survey data collected from fathers to pilot test messaging content; and (3) qualitative data from Text4Dad mentors and administrative data to describe the initial implementation, including strengths and challenges of implementation with low-income fathers.

Results

Focus group and interview data indicated that fathers wanted content on attachment and bonding, caregiving, infant development, coparenting, play, and self-care for fathers. Based on this, we developed Text4Dad messages in these content areas.

Second, we conducted online surveys using Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to examine the acceptability of the Text4Dad messages. Participants were 171 men with at least one young child at home or expecting a child. The text messages had overall high acceptability. Participants expressed preference for standard English over text language (e.g., “you” vs. “u”). Attachment and play messages were most appealing to fathers with 2-9 month olds. Coparenting messages were most appealing to fathers with 9-15 month olds. Fathers indicated that they thought the messages were encouraging, positive, developmentally appropriate, and practical. Low-income fathers wanted messages on financial management. Other suggestions for improvement included: “More tips about doing basic baby things, like feeding and changing. Not every father is prepared for something like this...this service could be very useful for unprepared fathers.” “I would of like to see more inspirational messages to give a dad hope.”

Third, qualitative and administrative data on implementation suggest that the mentors find the Text4Dad user platform easy to navigate. They prefer fewer and simpler messages in the drop-down menus. Analysis of exchanges between mentors and fathers suggest that mentors are able to tailor the messages to the individual fathers. Despite these strengths, mentors required ongoing support from the research team to make optimal use of the features of the Text4dad platform.

Conclusion/ Implications

One overall implication is the importance of engaging fathers in content development. Our iterative approach ensured that fathers’ parenting concerns were represented in Text4Dad content. Another overarching implication for intervention development is the benefit of rapid testing of content. The use of online surveys via MTurk is novel and made it possible to quickly test and improve Text4Dad messaging content. The survey results paired with qualitative data suggest that the Text4Dad content is acceptable to fathers. Even so, implementation in community-based contexts is likely to require technical assistance and supervision.