Summary
“Research clearly shows the importance of positive father involvement to healthy child outcomes, and indicates that fathers play a distinct role in supporting children’s social, emotional, cognitive and physical development and well-being. However, despite a growing recognition of the importance of fathers, international and Canadian studies suggest that a majority of parenting policies and interventions “explicitly or implicitly marginalize fathers,” focusing almost exclusively on mothers. The Government of Alberta (GOA) can play an important role in helping to redress this gender bias by supporting fathers across Alberta to be actively and responsibly engaged in the lives of their children. This report outlines the rationale and strategy for promoting positive father involvement across the prevention continuum, and offers specific recommendations for government action. The findings and recommendations outlined in this report are based on extensive research conducted by Shift: The Project to End Domestic Violence. Shift’s interest in promoting positive fatherhood emerged as a result of research related to engaging healthy, non-violent men and boys in violence prevention activities as an important primary prevention strategy for domestic violence. Fatherhood was identified as a key entry point for this work and as a promising way to prevent violence against both women and children. Further investigation confirmed that the benefits of positive father involvement go well beyond violence prevention and little is available in Alberta to support positive father involvement. Recognizing an opportunity for the GOA to refocus its investments in parenting to ensure a more equitable emphasis on fathers, Shift met with key policy makers from across government to gauge their interest in advancing a fatherhood strategy. With the understanding that broad-based support for a fatherhood strategy clearly existed among policy makers, Shift conducted a number of research projects to support further development, including: a review of the literature on positive father involvement; a review of evidence-based fatherhood programs; interviews with 27 policy makers across the GOA; interviews with representatives from two organizations in Alberta that implemented father-friendly programs and practices; a review of assessment tools designed to help human service organizations become more father-friendly; a review of 21 Alberta policy frameworks/strategies (from 2004-2016) and eight GOA business plans released in November 2015. This report draws on all of these sources to highlight the importance of supporting positive fatherhood involvement and outline ways that the GOA can enhance related programing and policy in the Alberta context."--Page 5.