[Journal Article] Qualitative Evaluation of NFI’s Understanding Dad™

Last October I blogged about a second, independent evaluation of Understanding Dad™, a program of National Fatherhood Initiative^® that helps moms:

• Understand why father involvement is important.
• Improves moms’ awareness of how their relationship with their own dad and mom impacts moms’ relationship with their child’s dad.
• Improves communication between moms and their child’s dad.
• Increases moms’ confidence in co-parenting with their child’s dad.

The researchers have submitted two articles on the evaluation to peer-reviewed journals. The first of the two articles, which includes the results of the qualitative portion of the evaluation, has been published in Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services. (The second article includes the results of the quantitative portion of the evaluation and is under review.)

The abstract of the journal article summarizes the qualitative results.

Coparenting between mothers and nonresident fathers is a consistent predictor of positive father involvement and is shown to have a direct positive impact on children’s behavioral outcomes. While many fatherhood programs attempt to improve coparenting relationships using father-only interventions, the information on their effectiveness is mixed. Couple interventions may be more effective than father-only approaches but are very hard to achieve with nonresident parents. Engaging mothers may be more practical and beneficial, although there is very little literature on the impact of mother-only interventions on coparenting relationships. The current study begins to address that gap. It presents qualitative reactions by mothers and fathers to a mother-only coparenting intervention and finds that a mother-only approach can achieve some important goals such as improved communication, reduced conflict, and mother’s understanding of the father’s point of view. Fathers whose parenting partners participated in the mother-only group agreed with mothers’ assessments and also reported less undermining.

Click here to download the journal article.

As soon as the article on the quantitative portion of the evaluation is published, I’ll blog about it. In the meantime, read my October post for a summary of those results. And to learn more about Understanding Dad™, click here.

Does your organization work with moms and dads to improve their coparenting?

Did you know that Understanding Dad™ can be an effective research- and evidence-informed coparenting intervention?