Study Title: The Role of Fatherhood Interventions In Creating Supportive Environments to Sustain Wellbeing, Mental Health, Child Attachment, and Relationships for Fathers Impacted By the Criminal Legal System

Oral Paper Presentation

Background and Purpose:

While more than 70% of incarcerated persons are parents, privatizing the correctional system has resulted in scattershot and minimal interventions to encourage positive engagement between incarcerated parents and their children. Deprivation of liberty in itself corrodes family engagement, and lack of contact and engagement with incarcerated parents has documented ill effects on children, increasing their risk of poor behavioral and mental health outcomes. For families in poverty, lack of father engagement is powerfully associated with intergenerational poverty. Thus, interventions supporting fathers’ engagement with their children are essential. This presentation describes one intervention program for fathers deprived of liberty (The Power of Fathers, POF), and a quasi-experimental program evaluation of the program’s impact.

Research Questions:

• 1) What impact does intervention programming PoF have on paternal engagement, mental health, and attachment with children among incarcerated Black fathers?
• 2) What do fathers participating in the PoF tell us about the program’s value for them and how it can be improved?

Methods (Design & Data Collection):

• This original study used a quasi-experimental design to assess the outcomes of the PoF engagement curriculum on mental health maintenance, paternal attachment, and reported child developmental outcomes. The program's impact on those variables is compared between an intervention group and a wait-list control group. In addition, qualitative interviews with participants enable the fathers to contribute their insights about their struggles, strengths, and ways the program can be optimized to suit their needs. Descriptive statistics and ANOVA were used to analyze data from standardized measures, and thematic analysis was used to analyze qualitative data.

Sampling Methods:

Data were collected using a purposive sampling (non-probability) method drawing from a total sample size of (N= 80; n= 40 treatment group; n= 40 non-treatment group/wait-list control group; with n=10 in-depth interviews) of participants located in the county jail of a large Midwestern city. All fathers identify as Black or African American, have at least one biological child, and are between the ages of 18 and 45.

Results:

• Preliminary results indicate that the PoF program reduced depression, improved attachment, and resilience for participating fathers. Fathers emphasized that the program enabled them to understand their roles as essential to providing nurturing and building self-esteem for their children. Fathers indicated that they felt a stronger bond between themselves and their children after completion of the program. Furthermore, returned citizens secured full-time employment. Fathers stated that they felt a sense of purpose after program completion and looked forward to being more engaged in their children’s lives. Lastly, fathers indicated that they felt relieved to have the support of the group available.

• Fathers who participated in and completed the Power of Fathers Intervention reported employment readiness, learned new parenting skills, and increased positive identity, leading to a reduction in risky behavior.

Conclusion: Fatherhood support groups for fathers deprived of liberty show considerable promise for improving participants’ mental health and confidence in their parental role, while serving as potential antidotes to recidivism and intergenerational poverty for families impacted by social inequities.