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Fathers' Fair Share: Helping Poor Men Manage Child Support and Fatherhood

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Fathers' Fair Share: Helping Poor Men Manage Child Support and Fatherhood DOCUMENT RESUME ED 437 481 UD 033 276 AUTHOR Johnson, Earl S.; Levine, Ann; Doolittle, Fred C. TITLE Fathers' Fair Share: Helping Poor Men Manage Child Support and Fatherhood. INSTITUTION Manpower Demonstration Research Corp., New York, NY. SPONS AGENCY Department of Health and Human SerVices, Washington, DC.; Pew Charitable Trusts, Philadelphia, PA.; Russell Sage Foundation, New York, NY.; Kellogg Foundation, Battle Creek, MI.; Mott (C.S.) Foundation, Flint, MI.; Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC.; Annie E. Casey Foundation, Baltimore, MD.; Department of Labor, Washington, DC.; Smith Richardson Foundation, Inc., Greensboro, NC.; Ford Foundation, New York, NY.; North Carolina Governor's Highway Safety Program.; Northwest Area Foundation, St. Paul, MN. ISBN ISBN-0-87154-411-3 PUB DATE 1999-00-00 NOTE 258p. AVAILABLE FROM CUP Services, P.O. Box 6525, Ithaca, NY 14851 ($45). Tel: 607-277-2211; Fax: 607-277-6292. PUB TYPE Books (010) Reports - Descriptive (141) EDRS PRICE MFO1 /PC11 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Blacks; *Child Support; Father Attitudes; *Fathers; Hispanic Americans; *Parent Participation; Parent Role; *Parenting Skills; *Poverty; Unemployment IDENTIFIERS African Americans ABSTRACT This book examines the experiences of 32 men paticipating in Parents' Fair Share (PFS), which was designed to help them get better jobs, pay child support, and become more involved with their children. All participants were low-income, noncustodial fathers who were not paying court mandated child support. Most were African American or Latino and lived in inner city, low-income neighborhoods. Data came from semi-structured interviews, informal conversations, and observations. Participants offered their opinions of and reactions to PFS and discussed whether it helped them become consistent child support payers. They also discussed theirlives outside of PFS, articulating obstacles encountered when trying to become more active parents. Eight appendixes present sample data and research methodology; maps; lists and descriptions of peer support sessions;family tree; personal shields; profiles of two participants deciding how to use their money; profiles of selected participants; questions for noncustodial parents in PFS; and profile of interviewees. (Contains 60references.) (SM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. 1 4 OF EDUCATION U S DEPARTMENTResearch and Improvement Office of Educational RESOURCES INFORMATION EDUCATIONAL CENTER (ERIC) been reproduced as This document has received from the personor organization originating it been made to Minor changes have improve reproductionquality this ° Points of view oropinions stated in document do notnecessarily represent official OERI position orpolicy (V) 466, Ann Leiiineerand Fr C.Doolittle- BEST COPYAVAILABLE to air ne of the most challenging goals for welfare reformers has been improving the collection of child support payments from noncustodial parents, usually fathers. Often vilified as "deadbeats" who have dropped out of their children's lives, these fathers have been the target of largely puni- tive enforcement policies that givelittle consideration to the complex circum- stances of these men's lives. Fathers' Fair Share presents an alternative to these mea- sures with an in-depth study of the Parents' Fair Share program. A multi-state interven- tion run by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, the program was designed to better the employment and life skills of nonpaying fathers with children on public assistance, in the belief that this would encourage them to improve their level of child support. Chronically unem- ployed or underemployed, undereducated, and often earning their money on the streets, the men chosen for the program bore the scars of drug or alcohol abuse, troubled family lives, and arrest records. Among those of African American and Hispanic descent, many felt a deep-rooted distrust of the mainstream economy. The Parents' Fair Share program offered these men the chance not only to learn the social skills needed for stable employment but to participate in discussions about personal 3 (continued on back flap) FATHERS' FAIR SHARE 4 FATHERS' FAIR SHARE Helping Poor Men Manage Child Support and Fatherhood Earl S. Johnson, Ann Levine, and Fred C. Doolittle A Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation Study RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION / NEW YORK The Russell Sage Foundation The Russell Sage Foundation, one of the oldest of America's general purpose foundations, was established in 1907 by Mrs. Margaret Olivia Sage for the "improvement of social and living con- ditions in the United States." The Foundation seeks to fulfill this mandate by fostering the devel- opment and dissemination of knowledge about the country's political, social, and economic problems. While the Foundation endeavors to assure the accuracy and objectivity of each book it publishes, the conclusions and interpretations in Russell Sage Foundation publications are those of the authors and not of the Foundation, its Trustees, or its staff. Publication by Russell Sage, therefore, does not imply Foundation endorsement. BOARD OF TRUSTEES Peggy C. Davis, Chair Alan S. Blinder Jennifer L. Hochschild Neil J. Smelser Joel E. Cohen Timothy A. Hultquist Eugene Smolensky Thomas D. Cook Ira Katznelson Marta Tienda Robert E. Denham Ellen Condliffe Lagemann Eric Wanner Phoebe C. Ellsworth John S. Reed Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Johnson, Earl (Earl S.) Fathers' Fair Share: helping poor men manage child support and fatherhood/ Earl S. Johnson, Ann Levine, and Fred C. Doolittle. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-87154-411-3 1. Child welfareGovernment policyUnited States.2. Child supportGovernment policyUnited States.3. FathersServices forUnited States.4. Fathers Employment forUnited States.5. Poor menServices forUnited States. 6. Poor menemployment forUnited States.7. Children of single parents.United StatesEconomic conditions.I. Levine, Ann. II. Doolittle, Fred C.III. Title. HV741.J631999 98-47551 3627'1dc21 CIP The Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation's preparation of this volume was supported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Pew Charitable Trusts, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Annie E. Casey Foundation, U.S. Department of Labor, Smith Richardson Foundation, Ford Foundation, McKnight Foundation, and Northwest Area Foundation. The findings and condusions presented herein do not necessarily represent the official positions or policies of the funders or the states par- ticipating in the Parents' Fair Share Demonstration, which are listed in this document. Interested readers may wish to contact the states for more information on the program. Copyright1999 by Russell Sage Foundation. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmit- ted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Reproduction by the United States Government in whole or in part is permitted for any purpose. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI Z39.48-1992. RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION 112 East 64th Street, New York, New York 10021 To our parents 7 CONTENTS Foreword by Mercer L. Sullivan ix Acknowledgments xiii Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 The Participants 18 Chapter 3 The World Outside PFS: An Insider's View 58 Chapter 4 The Noncustodial Parents' Perspectives on Child 85 Support and the Child Support System Chapter 5 The Only Game in Town: Walking Through 104 the Doorway of Parents' Fair Share Chapter 6 The Employment and Training Component of PFS: 133 Job Club/Job Search Chapter 7 Conclusion 151 Appendix A Sample, Data, and Research Methodology 176 Appendix B Maps 185 Appendix C List and Description of Peer Support Sessions 192 8 viii FATHERS' FAIR SHARE Appendix D Family Tree 200 Appendix E Personal Shields 204 Appendix F Profile of Two Participants Deciding How to 207 Use Their Money Appendix G Profiles of Selected Participants 209 Appendix H Questions for Noncustodial Parents in PFS 213 Appendix I Profile of Interviewees 217 Notes 222 References 228 About the Authors 233 Index 234 FOREWORD This book is about unknown men. More than forty years after Ralph 1 Ellison's (1952) great imaginative evocation of the invisibility of all African Americans and more than thirty years after Elliot Liebow's (1968) classic ethnography of streetcorner men, men like those por- trayed here are still seen by most people, if they are noticed at all, through the distorting lenses of stereotyping, scapegoating, and, at best, condescension. To say that is not to deny that many children with noncustodial fathers could be lifted out of poverty if their fathers provided ade- quate financial support or that this lack of paternal financial support is not a major social problem. Effective and reasonable child support policies need to be devised and implemented. Despite considerable recent attention by policymakers to this issue, however, we are a long way from having such policies. There are many reasons for this fail- ure. One of the most important is that policy is so poorly informed about the men it seeks to change, especially men like these who have
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