Fathers Taking on an Active Role in Parenting
Cornell Cooperative Extension Schuyler County’s Parent Educator Home Visitor Program offers a series of lessons and are delivered over a period of time to families with children between the ages of birth to 18 by the parent educator. Recently, many fathers involved with Schuyler County’s Department of Social Services Child Protection Agency conveyed their willingness to be more involved in their child’s day to day lives as a full-time caregiver.
Twelve individual fathers had been referred to Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Parent Educator Program through Schuyler County’s Social Services in the past year. Of the 12 fathers, 8 have successfully participated in the parent education program. Successful participation is determined by demonstrating they were actively engaged and utilized information provided to them. Engagement includes keeping home visit appointments. Utilizing information consist of using a skill offered; for example, the skill of “can do” from the curriculum “The Magic Years”. The skill helps parents change negative statements from don’t to telling the child what they can do.
During the weekly home visits fathers receive information, skills and strategies about child development, skills and strategies to help them effectively parent their children, discipline techniques and communication skills. The fathers were encouraged to implement the information between visits and the initial part of each visit was a review of the previous visit’s information, i.e. how they were able to implement skills and the usefulness of the information to their family.
We incorporated visits to include the children, giving the fathers the opportunity to utilize parenting skills that have been delivered. The visits with children enable the parent educator to address any concerns that presented themselves and to focus on areas the father could strengthen to benefit his children.
Parent educator home visitor program consisted of 6 to 12 one hour visits. Six of the eight fathers currently have gained full custody and placement of their child (ren) and continue to use skills learned through the parent educator home visitor program offered by Cornell Cooperative Extension Schuyler County.
For additional parenting resources, visit CCE Schuyler's Parenting Education page
Parenting Education
Paula Goodrich, [email protected]