The Brotherhood of Fatherhood: Findings from a Case Study of the Direct Assistance to Dads (DAD) Project

Background/Purpose: Home visiting programs are a widespread service model for supporting families during pregnancy and early childhood. Historically, home visiting programs have largely overlooked engagement of fathers, and even as programs have become more attentive to the need for whole-family support, father engagement has been a persistent challenge for the field. The City of Milwaukee Health Department offers a unique home visiting program specifically designed for fathers and entirely staffed by fathers: the Direct Assistance to Dads (DAD) Project. This study aimed to identify practice strategies and insights from DAD Project staff and clients for effective engagement of fathers in home visiting services.

Methods: We conducted a focus group with 10 fathers and individual, semi-structured interviews with 12 fathers who are currently receiving home visiting services from the DAD Project or have recently completed services. All are expecting fathers or father to a child under 5 years of age. We also conducted individual, semi-structured interviews with the five core staff members of the DAD Project, including three home visitors, one community outreach specialist, and the program supervisor. The focus group emphasized generative discussion of how home visitors can effectively engage and serve fathers, and interviews addressed individual experiences with home visiting as provider or recipient, including positive and negative experiences, barriers to participation, and how home visitors have or could provide effective support to overcome these challenges. We conducted focused thematic analysis to identify themes related to effective approaches to engage and support fathers through home visiting services.

Results: Three overarching themes were identified, spanning all aspects of father engagement. (1) Essential ingredients: fathers and home visitors identified mutual respect, non-judgement, reciprocal sharing, and recognition of fathers as primary caregivers and experts in their children’s lives as key to motivating fathers to enter and sustain participation in home visiting services. (2) Holistic focus: home visitors support fathers to set and work toward personal goals and goals related to their parenting and co-parenting. They provide timely, relevant education and connection to resources to help fathers toward their goals, offer both support and accountability, and celebrate each step a father takes toward building healthy relationships and acquiring skills to create a better life for themselves, their children, and loved ones. (3) Brotherhood: participants universally emphasized the rarity and sanctity of honest and vulnerable conversation between fathers about fatherhood and associated challenges and joys.

Conclusions/Implications:

To the best of our knowledge, the DAD Project is the only home visiting program in the country that centers fathers and is staffed entirely by fathers. The program’s intentional approach to establishing a deep relationship with each father, tailoring support to meet individual and family needs, and creating community for fathers to share their perspectives, knowledge and experiences offers lessons for home visiting programs nationwide. Full engagement of fathers – through the implementation of effective strategies to reach, serve, and sustain participation of fathers – holds promise to amplify the demonstrated benefits of home visiting services to parents, children, and the family as a whole.