TRUE Dads: The impact of a couples‐based fatherhood intervention on family relationships, child outcomes, and economic self‐sufficiency

Abstract

TRUE Dads, a federally funded Responsible Fatherhood intervention, aims to strengthen three of men's key roles in the family: (1) as fathers, building and maintaining positive engagement with their child; (2) as partners, maintaining a positive relationship with their co-parent; and (3) as providers, through fostering employment and economic self-sufficiency. A feature of the program is How to cite this article: Cowan, P. A., Cowan C. P., & Gillette P. F. (2022). TRUE Dads: The impact of a couples-based fatherhood intervention on family relationships, child outcomes, and economic self-sufficiency.

Enhancing fathers’ parenting through strengthening couple functioning: A randomized controlled trial of low-income couples.

“…In doing so here, using a very large sample of socioeconomically disadvantaged couples who completed follow-up assessments at 12 and 30 months, we were able to demonstrate that indirect effects on fathering outcomes did occur as a result of the intervention, despite nonsignificant direct effects. These findings bolster emerging evidence that couple-based interventions can indirectly improve parent and child outcomes, even in the absence of significant direct effects (e.g., Cowan et al, 2022; Lavner et al, 2020; Pruett et al, 2019), and suggest that these types of programs do hold promise for benefitting the family system more broadly to the extent that the couple relationship can be successfully improved.…”

“…Descriptive Statistics and Correlations Among Study Variables socioeconomically disadvantaged couples who completed follow-up assessments at 12 and 30 months, we were able to demonstrate that indirect effects on fathering outcomes did occur as a result of the intervention, despite nonsignificant direct effects. These findings bolster emerging evidence that couple-based interventions can indirectly improve parent and child outcomes, even in the absence of significant direct effects (e.g., Cowan et al, 2022;Lavner et al, 2020;Pruett et al, 2019), and suggest that these types of programs do hold promise for benefitting the family system more broadly to the extent that the couple relationship can be successfully improved. This study had several methodological strengths, including the use of a large sample of low-income couples, who are at higher risk for poor relationship outcomes (Karney, 2021), as well as the use of an RCT with lagged assessments to establish temporal precedence and causal linkages.…”

“…One randomized controlled trial (RCT) of 239 fathers and their coparenting partners participating in a group-based fatherhood and couple intervention found that intervention-induced reductions in couple conflict from baseline to 2-months postintervention (the first postintervention assessment) were significantly associated with concurrent reductions in anxious/harsh parenting (Pruett et al, 2019), but effects for fathers specifically were not reported. Another recent RCT of 1,042 couples who participated in a couples-based fatherhood intervention found an indirect effect of the intervention on the parent–child relationship, mediated by personal distress and coparenting relationship quality (Cowan et al, 2022); again effects for fathers were not reported separately and all outcomes were assessed at the same time, leaving open questions about whether this chain of associations was causal. Finally, an RCT of 346 African American fathers who participated in a couple-focused intervention showed improvements in couple functioning relative to controls and this was associated with better parent–child relationship quality 8 months later, but no other parenting measures were reported (Lavner et al, 2020).…”

Associations Between Mother-Adolescent and Father-Adolescent Relationships and Young Adult Health

“…Although outreach is often to mothers, our findings suggest that interventions should include both mothers and fathers when feasible. Emerging research can inform such efforts, and more research is needed to explore innovative strategies, such as building peer support or mentoring father networks and mobile messaging interventions targeting fathers, to better engage fathers in adolescents’ health …”

“…Emerging research can inform such efforts, and more research is needed to explore innovative strategies, such as building peer support or mentoring father networks and mobile messaging interventions targeting fathers, to better engage fathers in adolescents' health. 39,40 Existing literature demonstrates effective strategies to influence parental expectancies and behaviors and favorably influence adolescents' perceptions of parental trustworthiness, communication, and relationship satisfaction. [41][42][43] Reviews of parenting interventions outside of clinic settings have shown favorable associations with the quality of parent-adolescent relationships, as well as health-related outcomes.…”