Five Questions for Karin Martinson

Karin Martinson and Demetra Nightingale, coauthors of “Ten Key Findings from Responsible Fatherhood Initiatives,” reviewed studies of several programs for low-income fathers who don’t have custody of their kids. The programs are designed to help these fathers become more financially and emotionally connected to their children. Martinson answers five questions about the study and the lessons drawn from this early generation of programs.

Five Questions Archives

April 14, 2008

1. What can you tell us about the image of the “deadbeat dad” and why some fathers don’t pay child support?

When you think of “deadbeat dads,” you think of men who don’t keep up on their child support payments even though they earn enough. The term that many informed people use instead for low-income, non-custodial dads is “dead-broke”—it’s closer to the mark because these dads have little or no income and really can’t meet their child support obligations. Often, child support orders are set at levels they can’t afford and that aren’t adjusted if they lose their jobs or change jobs. Most of these dads have very low education and skill levels, so it’s hard for them to find higher-paying jobs that would allow them to make child support payments. Instead, as many of these fathers accumulate child support debts, they feel like they have to evade the child support system and they may see less of their children. Stronger enforcement of child support requirements doesn’t work when fathers don’t have enough money to pay.

2. Tell us about the responsible fatherhood programs you studied.

We reviewed demonstration projects for low-income, non-custodial fathers that operated over the last 15 years. These programs provided a range of services to help low-income fathers find more stable and better-paying jobs, pay their child support more consistently, and become a more involved parent. All aimed to help fathers get better jobs so they can better support their children. Many of these fathers want to play a more active role in their kids’ lives, and these programs helped them do that through job search assistance, parenting services, connections to the child support system, and peer support groups. Some programs partner with child support agencies to encourage formal participation and are an important ally to fathers trying to understand how the system works.

3. Did these programs boost participants’ earnings and child support payments?

Earnings remained very low for most participants in fatherhood programs. Many of the job-focused workshops in these early programs mainly taught job search skills and other “soft skills,” such as good workplace behavior. That fathers generally found only low-paying jobs after getting these services isn’t surprising, since they still had low education and skill levels. Also, many of these men were also wrestling with a criminal history, substance abuse, and health issues. Some fatherhood programs were better than others at meeting these multiple needs. Some programs had better success increasing the payment of child support and helping fathers understand why it’s so important to pay. In many cases, this led more fathers to establish child support orders and make child support payments even when earnings did not increase.

Keep in mind that this was the first generation of responsible fatherhood programs so it’s not surprising they had limited success. With new funding available for fatherhood initiatives through the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, there’s renewed interest in developing programs for fathers. We wrote this paper to identify lessons that would help program administrators and policymakers build on what’s been done so far.

4. What are the biggest challenges facing responsible fatherhood programs?

One is recruiting fathers to participate and keeping them enrolled. For this reason, many programs we studied combined positive and negative incentives to encourage participation. They offered services that fathers had a strong interest in—employment services, parenting services, and peer support—but also reminded them that they could face higher child support orders or jail time if they don’t pay child support.

Another challenge is finding skill-building activities that work. Overall, these programs, which primarily helped fathers find jobs, really didn’t increase fathers’ earnings in the long-run. Because these men typically wanted to find jobs quickly, they didn’t take the time to join in training or other skill-building activities that might help them get a better job. Skill-building activities that pay a stipend or that can be done on the job might do the trick here.

Developing sustained funding is tough too. Many of the programs we looked at were funded by temporary sources and disappeared when the funding well went dry. It’s hard to build momentum and capacity without long-term funding. Programs that sustained themselves over time worked hard to raise funds and went after diverse funding sources.

5. What are the top three lessons policymakers should take away from this report?

Child support agencies need to collaborate with responsible fatherhood programs and respond to the circumstances of low-income fathers. While these programs can help fathers learn more about how the system works, child support agencies can establish more realistic orders and help fathers develop plans for dealing with the debt they’ve accumulated. There are solid options out there—debt compromise, lower orders for low-income earners, flexible payment arrangements, or payment orders calibrated to reflect changes in income.

Program designers need to develop effective employment and co-parenting services. As I mentioned, job training combined with work or stipends would help fathers under pressure to earn money immediately and build their job skills. Also, a lot of fathers have difficult relationships with their child’s mothers, who have been known to block or restrict access to their children. Future programs could develop ways of reaching out to mothers and working with both parents on custody, visitation, and co-parenting issues.

And, finally, we need to think about ways to make systemic and lasting changes for low-income fathers. Many of the programs studied were too small and local to prompt wide-scale change. More regulatory and legislative changes are needed at the state and federal level to achieve sustained change on a wider scale.