Evaluating a Couples Group to Enhance Father Involvement in Low‐Income Families Using a Benchmark Comparison

Abstract

Following an earlier randomized clinical trial, now with broadened sample criteria, 236 low‐income White, Mexican American, and African American couples participated in 16‐week Supporting Father Involvement couples groups, with assessments at baseline, 2‐, and 13‐months postintervention. Because couples in the earlier control condition experienced no benefits and some declines in adaptation, a control condition was not offered. Data from the original couples groups (n = 96) and controls (n = 98) served as benchmarks for evaluating the current results. Of 11 measures in this study, 10 revealed positive baseline–post 2 changes. Father involvement increased for current couples group participants, though not as much as for benchmark couples group participants: they showed statistically similar positive changes on six measures (decline in parenting stress, stability in couple relationship satisfaction, children's hyperactivity, social withdrawal, psychological symptoms, increased income), and greater positive change on two of three measures (reductions in parents' violent problem solving, children's aggression).

Supporting Father Involvement: An Intervention With Community and Child Welfare–Referred Couples

“…Father involvement, the first of two variables examined outside of the latent structural equation modeling, increased among immediate intervention participants according to reports of community mothers and CWS‐referred mothers and fathers. Previous studies in California (e.g., P. A. Cowan et al, , ), Canada (Kline Pruett et al, ), and the United Kingdom (Casey et al, ) also showed an increase in fathers' positive involvement with the children and their mothers. We noted that the amount of father involvement was unrelated to measures of father–child relationship quality and was therefore not included in our SEM model.…”

“…Supporting Father Involvement (SFI), a group intervention for fathers or for coparenting couples in primarily low‐income families, is an exception. Designed to (a) increase the quantity and quality of fathers' involvement with their children and (b) strengthen the relationship between fathers and their coparenting partners, SFI has demonstrated efficacy (P. A. Cowan, Cowan, Kline Pruett, Pruett, & Wong, ) and effectiveness (P. A. Cowan, Cowan, Kline Pruett, Pruett, & Gillette, ; Kline Pruett, Cowan, Cowan, & Pruett, ; Kline Pruett, Gillette, & Pruett, ) in terms of its impact on parents and on their children—an outcome rarely examined in studies of couple interventions.…”

Parenting in On/Off Relationships: The Link Between Relationship Churning and Father Involvement

“…In terms of approaches to working with families, this finding emphasizes that programs that seek to encourage father involvement with children must attend to the nature and quality of the relationship between the two parents, not just the father’s parenting skills and attitudes (see, for example, the Supporting Father Involvement Project; Cowan et al 2014). …”

Changing Families: A Preventive Intervention Perspective

“…Participants in the fathers‐only groups showed increased involvement in the care of their children but declining relationship satisfaction, whereas mothers and fathers who attended the groups as couples reported increases in father involvement, declines in parenting stress, and stable levels of both relationship satisfaction and child behaviors over 18 months. We went on to replicate these findings with a second, more ethnically diverse sample (P. A. Cowan et al, ), and a third trial in which half of the families were referred by child welfare staff because of earlier domestic violence, child abuse, or neglect (Pruett, Cowan, Cowan, Gillette, & Pruett, ). In this latter, higher‐risk sample, participation in a couples group intervention also produced statistically significant positive effects on reducing parents' relationship distress (conflict and violent problem‐solving 2 months after the groups ended).…”