The National Family Preservation Network is completing a three-year project to motivate and train social workers to engage and involve fathers in their children’s lives. Two child welfare agencies in Washington State and San Mateo County, California, have demonstrated that their social workers changed their attitudes and beliefs, and improved practice in working with fathers. Key findings from the research follow:

• A pre- and post-survey of social workers’ attitudes and beliefs found them more likely to view their agency as intentionally involving fathers in decision-making, perceiving mothers as allies in locating fathers, and treating fathers more equally with mothers in providing social services and visits with children.
• A pre- and post-survey of agency administrators found that the agencies became much more father-friendly, with an agency focus on fatherhood; individual measures improved in over two-thirds of the total items.
• One key question was whether or not social workers would make greater efforts to engage and involve fathers. The research compared initial cases with cases opened six months later; the later cases showed a marked improvement in father engagement.
• Social workers were asked to meet benchmarks of 10% improvement in each of the following areas: father identified as a resource, father participated in case planning, father’s extended family involved, and the case plan involved the fathers’ extended family. Social workers met every one of these benchmarks when fathers could be located, a critical component in engagement. Two of the benchmarks were statistically significant, a most encouraging finding for a new project.
• In summary, the research taken as a whole, supports that an agency focus on fatherhood will result in workers making changes in practice to engage and involve fathers and the father’s extended family.

NFPN believes that your agency can see similar results with a focus on fatherhood and training for practitioners. We now offer two self-contained training packages to train practitioners. Please visit our Web site at www.nfpn.org/fatherhood/ for more information.

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