Strong Fathers Strong Families Research Project

Project Overview

The Annie E. Casey Foundation contracted the Texas Institute for Child & Family Wellbeing to conduct a participatory action research project to understand how school communities that have implemented Strong Fathers Strong Families programming engage fathers at schools. The project also sought community feedback on the program. This effort was a follow up to the process evaluation of Strong Fathers programming where TXICFW researchers found that programming could benefit from being tailored to each school community.

About Strong Fathers Strong Families

Strong Fathers Strong Families Campus Program was a school-based fatherhood program. The program aimed to improve father engagement in their child’s education both at school and at home. There were several events within their program, but this project focused on single-day short events implemented at schools. These short events were:

• Bring Your Dad to School Day
• Subject-specific events (math, science, and reading) that occur in the morning before school or in the evening after school

Research Activities

To conduct this participatory action research project, TXICW did the following:

1. Onboard two school districts implementing Strong Fathers to participate in community engagement project.
2. Recruit Community Engagement Liaisons who are part of each school’s community to help co-design feedback sessions with a Fatherhood Engagement Specialist.
3. Recruit and conduct feedback sessions to understand how fathers engage with their children and to gain feedback about the Strong Fathers to programming identify programmatic changes.