National Fatherhood Initiative® Celebrates 30th Anniversary

Nation's leading fatherhood organization has trained nearly 60,000 individuals and organizations to engage and serve fathers while distributing over 11 million fatherhood skill-building resources since 1994

GERMANTOWN, Md., June 11, 2024 As millions of Americans prepare to celebrate Father's Day, National Fatherhood Initiative®, the nation's leading fatherhood organization, celebrates its 30th anniversary. Over the past three decades, National Fatherhood Initiative® has expanded from using public education and research to raise awareness of the benefits of father involvement to increasing father involvement by equipping communities and human service organizations with the training, programs, and resources they need to be father inclusive.

In summarizing the organization's evolution since its launching in 1994, National Fatherhood Initiative® President Christopher A. Brown said, "We have evolved from an exclusive focus on public advocacy around the unique and irreplaceable role fathers play in child well-being to become the nation's primary builder of capacity in communities and organizations to involve fathers in a whole-family approach to strengthening families, the bedrock of healthy communities and societies." He added, "We not only come alongside our human service partners to start and maintain programs and services designed for fathers. We work with leaders in multiple sectors to change the culture of communities and organizations so that they create and institutionalize norms and values that embrace fathers' unique and irreplaceable role."

"National Fatherhood Initiative® works with leaders in multiple sectors to change the culture of communities and organizations so that they create and institutionalize norms and values that embrace fathers' unique and irreplaceable role," said NFI president, Christopher A. Brown.

Fathers influence their children's development in unique and meaningful ways. Positive father involvement is associated with better outcomes on nearly every measure of child well-being, including being less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol and more likely to graduate high school.

Despite overwhelming research on how engaging fathers benefits the whole family, human service organizations are primarily mother-focused. National Fatherhood Initiative® comes alongside these organizations with a strengths-based approach to father involvement training to help them be intentionally and proactively father inclusive. Since 1994, the organization has impacted children and families by:

"Chautauqua Opportunities, Inc. has considered National Fatherhood Initiative® a trusted partner in our work with fathers over the years," said Cathy Szukala, Life Skills Facilitator for the Chautauqua Opportunities, Inc., Fatherhood Program, a federal responsible fatherhood grantee. "Our fatherhood staff have been well-trained and better equipped to engage fathers and encourage individuals on their fatherhood journey through our use of the 24/7 Dad® and InsideOut Dad® evidence-based curricula and participating annually in their curricula training. We also utilize National Fatherhood Initiative's® other resources and training that have helped us establish a successful fatherhood program."

National Fatherhood Initiative® has developed the nation's most widely used evidence-based and evidence-informed fatherhood resources used by hundreds of organizations across the U.S. Its flagship programs include 24:7 Dad® and InsideOut Dad®. Independent research has found these programs produce outcomes critical to good fathering and child well-being, including increases in pro-fathering knowledge, attitudes, and skills, more effective co-parenting, and lower risk of child abuse and neglect. The organization also offers Understanding Dad™, a program for mothers that increases their knowledge of fathers' importance to child well-being and improves co-parenting.

Transformations in societal attitudes toward fatherhood and efforts by human services agencies and practitioners to proactively engage fathers and support them in overcoming challenges have helped increase father presence. Today, approximately 75%, or 54.5 million of the country's 72.3 million children, are living with a father in the home. There are 2.8 million fewer children in father-absent homes (17.8 million) since that figure peaked at 20.6 million in 2012.

For more information on National Fatherhood Initiative®, visit http://www.fatherhood.org.

About National Fatherhood Initiative®
National Fatherhood Initiative® (NFI) was founded in 1994 to reverse our nation's destructive trend toward father absence. Today, nearly 20 million American children live in homes where their biological fathers do not live. Yet, the fact remains that millions of families interact with human-service organizations every year that are primarily mother-focused. Therefore, NFI's mission is to increase father involvement by equipping human service organizations and communities with the father engagement training, programs, and resources they need to be father-inclusive. Our vision is that all human service organizations and communities are proactively father-inclusive so that every child has an involved, responsible, and committed father.

Accordingly, we accomplish our mission by:

For more information on NFI, visit http://www.fatherhood.org.