Introduction
Research shows that mainstream parenting and repeat pregnancy prevention programs generally do not effectively engage with fathers and that young men’s levels of participation in such services are low. To support practitioners in overcoming the barriers to recruiting and retaining young fathers, the current study aimed to gather lessons learned from one program’s state administrators, case managers, and young fathers about the most effective strategies for engaging this population in intensive case management.
Methods
Three focus groups were conducted. One focus group was held with the creators and managers of the Michigan Adolescent Pregnancy and Parenting Program MI-APPP at the state Department of Health and Human Services (n = 3). The other two groups were designed to jointly engage young fathers currently involved in intensive case management (n = 11) and their case managers (n = 5). A qualitative analysis of the focus group transcripts was conducted using a coding scheme developed from emerging themes in the transcripts and related literature.
Results
The findings highlight a selection of those strategies that focus group participants perceived to be most successful in improving male recruitment and retention in intensive ongoing case management. Among these strategies were centralizing feedback from young fathers in program decision making, offering opportunities for young fathers to connect, and challenging staff’s negative stereotypes about young fathers.
Discussion
Despite the small sample size, the results of this study nevertheless contribute to debates in the field regarding appropriate strategies for engaging young fathers by informing professional practice.
American Indians experience significant health disparities compared to the general U.S. population. The Steps to a Healthier Anishinaabe program adopted a unique framework to implement health promotion intervention activities in multiple American Indian communities in Michigan. By enabling each community to tailor interventions to their specific culture and health priorities, the program is characterized by a culturally competent and community-driven approach to decrease the impact of chronic diseases on the health of Michigan's American Indians. This article describes the community-based framework and argues that multisite, community-tailored health promotion programs are a promising approach to reducing health disparities in minority populations.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.