Marsha Kline Pruett PhD, MSL, ABPP

SFI

Supporting Father Involvement / Parents as Partners

Lead researchers: Dr. Marsha Kline Pruett, PhD, MSL, ABPP; Dr. Kyle Pruett, MD; Professors Philip and Carolyn Cowan (University of California, Berkeley).

Supporting Father Involvement (SFI) is a coparenting intervention program for parents, caregivers, and their children. The work aims to reduce child abuse and neglect while enhancing family well-being through father involvement and partnered coparenting among married and unmarried parents as well as coparenting family members.

Dr. Pruett and her collaborators co-led a series of randomized clinical trials in a 12-year study funded by the California Department of Social Services, Office of Child Abuse Prevention. The program compared fathers-only groups, couples groups, and control conditions, and later examined effectiveness among child welfare-involved and non-involved families.

The evidence base now includes replicated findings showing that early father involvement and team-based work with parents and caregivers can promote children’s development across a wide range of family circumstances.

At a glance

  • Target audience: married and unmarried parents, coparenting family members, and child welfare-involved families.
  • Core format: 16-week intervention groups, including couples-group and fathers-group models.
  • Reach: the program has continued through public and private support in California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Canada, the U.K. (Parents as Partners), Israel, Malta, Poland, and additional settings.

Randomized trial findings

A 12-year study funded by the California Department of Social Services established the evidence base through multiple randomized clinical trials.

RCT1: couples groups versus fathers-only groups

  • Control-group parents showed no positive change and some negative change, including declining marital satisfaction and increased child behavior problems.
  • In the 16-week fathers groups, fathers’ involvement in child care increased, but both fathers and mothers declined in marital satisfaction over the 18-month study.
  • By contrast, parents in the 16-week couples groups showed increased father involvement, no increase in children’s behavior problems, reductions in parenting stress, and no decline in marital satisfaction.

RCT2: behavior, relationship, and parenting improvements

  • Parents reported statistically significant declines in violent problem solving.
  • Studies found increases in fathers’ involvement and in parent-child relationship quality.
  • Children’s aggressive behaviors decreased, while mothers’ and fathers’ satisfaction as a couple remained stable.

RCT3: immediate versus delayed intervention

  • Couples assigned to the immediate intervention reported significantly less couple conflict than those in delayed groups.
  • Lower conflict was associated with better mother-child and father-child relationship quality.
  • Those changes were followed by decreases in aggressive behavior and depressive symptoms in children 18 months later.
  • Outcomes were as positive for child welfare-referred families as for families recruited from the community.
  • A surprising finding was a statistically significant gain in yearly income among intervention participants.

Trial 4 benchmark comparison and later trials

  • Twelve months after entering the study, SFI-Alberta participants showed significant positive change on 9 of the 11 measures used in prior U.S. SFI studies, including father involvement, parenting stress, and improved coparenting and parenting.
  • Later couples trials involving parents referred for relationship or adjustment difficulties found significant reductions in parents’ anxiety and depression, parenting stress, violent problem-solving strategies, and children’s behavior problems.

Findings across populations

  • These results held across race and ethnic groups, including Mexican-American, Black, and Caucasian families.
  • Effects were seen across socioeconomic groups, including lower- and higher-income families.
  • The work remained effective for families with parents endorsing higher or lower levels of depression and anxiety.

Current collaborators and dissemination

The program continues through public and private partnerships focused on dissemination, implementation, and father-inclusive practice in diverse family contexts.

  • Brazelton Touchpoints, bringing SFI to a large network of NGOs providing services to low-income families.
  • Programs for indigenous families in Western Canada and for families in additional international settings are also underway.

Recognition

  • In 2017, the UK version of SFI (Parents as Partners) won a Best Family Support Intervention National Award.

Strategic goals

  1. Expand dissemination and public-private partnerships around evidence-based father-inclusive intervention practice.
  2. Increase awareness among service providers, practitioners, and policy makers of the program’s demonstrated results.
  3. Foster substantive organizational change within public and private institutions so fathers are viewed as resources for, and caretakers of, children.

Coverage and implementation

Selected publications and resources

Additional information and supporting material: