Do dads matter? Child welfare outcomes for two-parent families involved with child welfare

In 2001, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) launched the Fatherhood Initiative. This initiative has several guiding principles including: government must encourage and promote fathers involvement through its programs and policies. Historically the child welfare system has focused its interventions on mothers, and has not involved fathers in child welfare programs. Using data from the first national evaluation of Family Treatment Drug Courts (FTDCs) this paper begins to address these important practice and policy relevant questions and asks specifically: do cases involving fathers tend to result in increased use of kinship care, shorter time to permanent placement, and more reunifications? In summary, the preponderance of findings across the sites, after accounting for covariates, show that children in two parent family cases are more likely to spend time with a parent during their child welfare case, and therefore less time in foster care. Moreover, two parent family cases, at many of the study sites, are more likely to result in reunification. Finally, while a relationship between family configuration and kinship foster care was not evidenced in this study, a relationship between family configuration and kinship permanency, when parents are unable to care for children was found.