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Contents
Promoting Fatherhood Engagement
Welcome to the New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) Fatherhood Engagement webpage. This page focuses on the work of OCFS to engage fathers in the child welfare and juvenile justice communities and to provide resources geared toward strengthening the relationship fathers have with their children.
Research shows that children whose fathers take a more active role in their lives have better outcomes related to academics, behavior and social skills.
Since 2007, OCFS has been working with the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance to better serve non-custodial parents, mostly fathers, who want to become more involved in their children’s lives, pay child support, and gain the skills that will strengthen their ability to be effective fathers.
Father involvement is supported through a number of state and federally funded programs across New York state that provide parenting programs, help couples maintain strong relationships, enhance fathers’ economic stability and provide support during incarceration and re-entry.
Mission
OCFS is committed to locating and engaging fathers and hearing their voices on how to best serve their children.
OCFS is committed to preparing fathers in the child welfare system and juvenile justice programs to become responsible parents.
For youth in our residential centers, OCFS identifies, monitors and prepares young fathers to be better parents when they are released.
OCFS Fatherhood Engagement Efforts
OCFS continues to develop and support efforts to fully engage fathers to improve child welfare outcomes and well-being. We are working together to collaborate with fatherhood programs statewide to uplift the voices of fathers in child welfare to create a support system that promotes father and father-figure engagement.
Definitions
Father Engagement – The process whereby a father is actively participating in activities with the child(ren), social work staff or social work organizations. Involvement does not necessarily have to be sustained over time; it could be a one-time-only phenomenon. Perhaps the father is:
- Having regular correspondence with social work staff.
- Participating in the case plan development process.
- Providing pertinent information related to the development of a court report.
- Participating in team decision meetings and family group decision meetings.
- Working with social work staff to identify paternal relatives as prospective placement options.
Father Involvement – The process whereby a father is actively participating in activities with the child(ren), social work staff or social work organizations. Involvement does not necessarily have to be sustained over time; it could be a one-time-only phenomenon. Perhaps the father is:
- Infrequently present, moderately present or frequently present in the life of the child(ren).
- Visiting with the child(ren) infrequently, moderately frequently or regularly frequent.
- Visiting with social work staff infrequently, moderately frequently or regularly frequent.
- Participating in school activities.
- Purchasing gifts for birthday, holiday and other special occasions.
- Taking the child(ren) to daycare and participating in daycare activities.
- Putting the child(ren) to bed at night.
- Paying child support, etc.