Description

Families experience improved wellbeing when fathers positively engage in their children’s lives; however, the current systems serving families often lack explicit fatherhood-specific programs which can create unintended barriers for fathers and families. The Washington Fatherhood Council represents a multi-sector and lived experience effort to amplify the voices of fathers and promote fatherhood inclusion so as to strengthen families and maximizes children’s potential. In 2023, the Council commissioned Camber Collective to undertake The State of Fatherhood in Washington Study to assess the fatherhood ecosystem. In this session, we will explore key lessons gleaned from a survey of fathers and a landscape analysis of agencies and services designed to address SDOH-related needs for fathers.

Session Takeaways:

• While many systems acknowledge many population segment-based disparities, fathers are rarely a priority population.
• To fully understand the inequities that fathers experience, data and monitoring processes are needed to specifically track/measure how fathers receive SDOH-related services vs. other population segments.
•  Though many Washington systems/agencies focus on two-generational or whole family approaches, they primarily focus on mother-child dyads or cohabitating two-parent homes.

Ideal Audience Description:

This session is ideal for community-based organizations, service providers, and governments interested in understanding how to better serve the needs of fathers, including those related to SDOH, to create a more inclusive fatherhood ecosystem.