Abstract
The Fathers Offering Children Unfailing Support (FOCUS) program serves fathers referred by Child Protective Services and the Attorney General’s Office. Our goal was to investigate changes in fathers’ report of parenting involvement and fathers’ instrumental support through child support payments through two separate studies of community samples. In the first study, fathers who completed FOCUS (n = 361) rated their parenting, co-parenting, and self-efficacy higher than a comparison group from the waiting list (n = 359). Fathers planning to enter the program reported less positive beliefs about their parenting than those who finished the program. Within the group completing the program, posttest scores contrasted with a retrospective pretest showed substantially stronger effects than a quasi-experimental design. Results indicate that fathers entering the program may be unaware of their needs for improvement or have high social desirability bias. In the second study, fathers in FOCUS increased their child support payments by almost 100% in the year after program completion. Both studies used anonymous data due to involvement in the court system. Future evaluations of high-stakes programs for at-risk families should be aware of issues with experimental designs.