Testing Identified Elements for Success in Fatherhood Programs (Fatherhood TIES)

The study includes three different tests. In all three tests, the control group is receiving services from an existing federally-funded fatherhood program. Fathers are being randomly assigned to that control group or to a program group that receives additional services. In test 1, the additional services include one-on-one coaching focused on parenting in addition to other services at an existing fatherhood program. In test 2, the additional services are individualized, concierge-level supports for navigating various systems that affect fathers’ ability to spend time with their children, such as family court, child welfare, and child support. In test 3, the additional services are financial supports in the form of $1500 paid out over three months, financial coaching, or both. For test 3, fathers will be assigned to four groups using a factorial design. The four groups include (1) financial supports only, (2) financial coaching only, (3) financial supports plus financial coaching, (4) the control group.

2024-02-05

2027-06-30

The key outcome variables will vary with the intervention:

• Parenting coaching: parenting skills and parent-child relationship quality (nurturing activities, non-violent discipline, harsh parenting, parent-child closeness, parenting stress, self-efficacy), and time spent with children (father-child frequency of contact, satisfaction with time spent with child).
• Systems navigation: parenting skills and parent-child relationship quality (nurturing activities, non-violent discipline, harsh parenting, parent-child closeness, parenting stress, self-efficacy), quality of relationship with co-parent (destructive and constructive communication, satisfaction with ci-parenting relationship, overall quality of co-parenting relationship, frequency of contact), time spent with children (father-child frequency of contact, satisfaction with time spent with child), and successful execution of steps to navigate systems (child custody, child support, establishment of paternity).
• Financial supports: Father well-being (depression, anxiety), and indicators of economic stability (employment status and earnings, food insecurity, material hardship)

In addition, results will be pooled across all interventions to look at parenting skills and parent-child relationship quality, quality of co-parenting relationship, father well-being, and indicators of economic stability.

All data will come from surveys with fathers and outcomes will be based on commonly used scales or individual survey questions. The outcomes are listed below:

• Parenting skills and parent-child relationship quality
o Nurturing activities comes from the Nurturing Activities Scale of the ECLS-K (Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies—Kindergarten) as used in the PACT (Parents and Children Together) study. The scale captures father reports of their engagement with children on a range of nurturing and cognitively stimulating activities.
o Non-violent discipline comes from the Parent-Child Conflict Tactics Scale (Strauss et al., 1998)
o Harsh parenting comes from the Parent-Child Conflict Tactics Scale (Strauss et al., 1998)
o Parent-child closeness and conflict comes from the Parent Child Relationship Scale (Pianta, 1992). This measure captures two domains of parent-child relationship quality – closeness and conflict. The measure has been widely used, including on the National Institute of Child and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. It has been shown to be sensitive to intervention impact and has strong psychometric properties.
o Parenting Stress comes from the Parenting Stress Index Short Form. This measure (Abidin, 1991) was developed to capture two domains of parenting stress – parental distress and parental dysfunctional interactions. It has been shown to be sensitive to intervention impact in studies of family-based programs (e.g., Lowell et al., 2011; Xia et al., 2023) and has demonstrated strong evidence of reliability and validity.
o Parent child closeness will be measured using and 3-point rating scale from the survey question ‘How close do you feel to your child’?
o Self-efficacy comes from the Father Appraisal Inventory (Trahan, Banman, and Fagan). This scale was developed to measure paternal self-efficacy for non-resident fathers.
• Quality of relationship with co-parent
o Overall quality of co-parenting relationship comes from a measure developed by Dyer at al. (2015). The measure will be used to assess the quality of the co-parenting relationship.
o Destructive and constructive communication with co-parent and satisfaction with co-parenting relationship use measures developed for both the Building Strong Families (Wood et al., 2010) and Supporting Healthy Marriage (SHM) evaluations (Hsueh et al., 2012). Most recently these measures were used in the evaluation of True Dads, a study led by Phil Cowan (Cowan et al., 2022). The measures were shown to be sensitive to intervention impacts in the True Dads evaluation and on the SHM evaluation. They also showed evidence of strong psychometric properties.
o Frequency of contact with co-parent is based on a question that asks how many times the fathers speaks directly with the co-parent. It is meant to describe the nature of the father’s relationship with the co-parent and to understand whether the father and co-parent interact enough for the father to answer the questions about the quality of their relationship and communication.
• Time spent with children
o Father-child frequency of contact is based on three questions asking the father how often the child has spent the night with them, how often they see the child, and how may contacts (e.g. phone call, video, call, social media) they have with the child.
o Satisfaction with time spent with child is based on a question that tasks the father how satisfied they are with the time they spent with their child.
• Successful execution of steps to navigate systems
o Child support and informal monetary support come from survey questions to assess whether the father had a formal child support agreement with the mother and whether he paid the mother any monetary support.
o In-kind support to child come from survey questions to assess whether the father spent any money to buy things for the child.
o Establishment of paternity comes from a survey question that asks if the father established paternity.
• Indicators of economic stability
o Employment status and earnings come from two survey questions that ask about current employment status and earnings in the past 30 days
o Food insecurity comes from two survey questions adapted from a USDA measure. One construct will be created, similar to the MIHOPE 15-month follow-up survey (Michalopoulos et al., 2019).
o Material hardship would equal 1 if the father indicates any of the following are true: had phone service disconnected, could not pay full amount of rent or mortgage, was evicted, had utility turned off, couldn’t see the doctor or dentist or go to the hospital because of cost.
• Father well-being
o Depression comes from the CESD-10 (Radloff, 1977) to capture depression. The scale has excellent psychometric properties.
o Father Anxiety comes from GAD-7 Anxiety scale.

The study includes three different tests. In all three tests, the control group will receive services from an existing federally funded fatherhood program. Fathers will be randomly assigned to that control group or to a program group that receives additional services. In test 1, the additional services will include one-on-one coaching focused on parenting in addition to other services at an existing fatherhood program. In test 2, the additional services will be individualized, concierge-level supports for navigating various systems that affect fathers’ ability to spend time with their children, such as family court, child welfare, and child support. In test 3, the additional services will include financial support in the form of $1500 paid out over three months, financial coaching, or both. For test 3, fathers will be assigned to four groups using a factorial design. The four groups include (1) financial supports only, (2) financial coaching only, (3) financial supports plus financial coaching, (4) the control group.

Not available

Randomization is done through the nFORM MIS system that all participating programs are using to enroll individuals into their program. Individual-level randomization in computerized in the nFORM MIS system and it is set up at the site level, for individuals to be randomly assigned within each of the five sites participating in TIES. An assignment block size is also set-up to achieve Treatment/Control ratio within a block of 10.

For the first and second tests, individuals are being randomized. For the third test, individuals are being randomized to receive financial coaching or not, but cohorts of fathers who enroll at the same time are being randomized to receive the financial payment or not.

Yes

Study 1 will include approximately 480 individuals.

Study 2 will include approximately 600 individuals.

Study 3 will include approximately 980 individuals within approximately 40 cohorts. The 980 individuals will be randomized to receive financial coaching or not. The 40 clusters will be randomized such that thirty percent receive financial payments and 70 percent will not.

Approximately 2,060 individuals.

Study 1: 192 parent coaching, 288 business-as-usual.

Study 2: 180 systems navigation, 420 business-as-usual.

Study 3: 12 cohorts financial payments, 28 cohorts no payments; 294 individuals financial coaching, 686 fathers business-as-usual.

Type of test Unit Sample size at baseline Sample size at follow-up Follow-up sample size (%) MDE Parenting coaching Individual 480 384 80% 0.205 Systems navigation Individual 600 480 80% 0.200 Financial supports Individual 980 784 80% 0.156 Financial coaching Individual 980 784 80% 0.156 Financial coaching plus financial supports Individual 294 236 80% 0.285 Pooled analysis Individual 2060 1648 80% 0.130