16

STATEMENT OF ANTHONY EDWARDS, MEN’S SERVICES
COUNSELOR, BALTIMORE CITY HEALTHY START PROGRAM

Mr. Epwarps. Good morning. First of all I would like to say my
name is Anthony Edwards. I am a 22-year-old men’s service advo-
cate, advocate counselor. I work for Joe Jones. I have a son that’s
4 years old. But what I would like to give off or my testimony
would be this morning, is the process on how I was able to receive
an opportunity to be employed with Mr. Jones.

Back in 1994, due to my extravagant lifestyle, I made some nega-
tive choices and ended up in some negative places. My son is 4
years old. In months, that would be 48 months. I have been an ac-
tive part of my son’s life for 45 months and 2 weeks. The other 3
months and 2 weeks I was incarcerated, as I said earlier, due to
some negative choices. However, upon my leaving my incarceration,
I met up with a pastor in Baltimore City by the name of Eleanor
M. Brian. I had just had my son. He was 3 months. I was carrying
him around with me. His mother and I, we were discussing some
immediate goals, some short-term goals, some long-term goals on
how I can get back into society and be productive as a man coming
from where I come from, as a black man coming from the inner
city.

My pastor gave me a lead to the program entitled the Young Fa-
thers Responsible Fathers Program, which is the brother to our
Heathy Start’s Men’s Services Program in Baltimore City. I went
through the program, and as Paul stated, because our process or
our living conditions, a lot of times, we put on particular defense
mechanisms, meaning that our attitude and our behavior kind of
shies us away from things that we may need to do or steps that
we may need to take to help us progress. However, because the
program worked so intensely with me and gave me so much sup-
port, they were able to help me to adjust my attitude, to help me
modify particular parts of my behavior to be a successful father.

However, upon my graduation, the challenge was me implement-
ing particular parts of whatever I needed to do with me to make
myself the best Anthony Edwards that I can possibly be. I would
see Mr. Jones around the city at particular events discussing fa-
therhood. I would say, Wow man, if only I could have a chance to
work with brothers who came from particular places like I have,
then maybe I’d feel like I can give them something significant and
sincere and genuine, because I know the struggles of growing up
in the inner city, being a man in our community and dealing with
a lot of issues that we may deal with.

I was given a call back in 1997 to work with Baltimore City
Healthy Start Men’s Services. Of course, I hopped upon the oppor-
tunity because it is not about whatever money I make, it is about
helping save somebody’s life or help somebody be productive who
has come from where I have come from. Now what I want to say,
as Paul stated, our program is very helpful. We stress for the guys
to participate in events outside our groups. We give them 24 hours
access to call us because we are there to support them. We are not
there to look down our nose at them or to demean them. We stress
for the guys to bring their kids to the group. As Paul said, we are
all fathers. Our main goal in the program is to be the best men we


387

every 10 children in America today—nearly 24 million overall—are growing up in
a home in which their father does not live. In working with fathers, we can not for-
get the importance of reaching out to the fatherless. Although providing a fatherless
child with an adult male mentor is not the same thing as providing a real live, in-
the-home, love-the-mother, father, it can be very helpful in teaching fatherless boys
what it means to be a responsible man, and in teaching fatherless daughters what
to demand from men in their lives.

THE FATHERS Count ACT OF 1998

Given these recommendations for a pro-father public policy, the Fathers Count
Act of 1998 is the right legislation at the right time for the following three reasons:
First, by supporting skill building programs for fathers, it sends a clear message
that fathers do matter, and not just financially. Second, by including as one of its
purposes the promotion of marriage, it contains a strong message that marriage is
the most effective pathway to responsible fatherhood. Third, by including $2 billion
dollars in block grant funding, it will help nurture and support the growth of the
fatherhood field.

There are, of course, objections to the bill. First, there are some who dislike the
fact that the legislation explicitly promotes marriage. Government, these critics
maintain, has no business promoting personal “values,” Instead, they insist, govern-
ment policy ought to be neutral when it comes to marriage.

This argument might be persuasive if not for the fact that for the past thirty
ears government policy, rather than being neutral, has actually punished marriage.
‘or example, when two-earner couples head for the altar instead of cohabiting, their

taxes actually go up, in some cases costing families with modest incomes $5000 or
more.

‘Things are even worse for low-income couples. In fact, should a single mother on
welfare choose to marry a low-wage earner and, in doing so, give her children a real
live in-the-home dad instead of a child support check, her benefits are frequently
reduced, if not eliminated. According to calculations by Eugene Steuerle of the
Urban Institute, when a man working full-time at a minimum wage job marries a
mother on welfare with two children, the new family’s combined earnings plus bene-
fits would be $3,862 less than if the couple did not marry and the woman stayed
on welfare.23 Hardly an incentive to get married.

This wouldn’t be so bad if marriage didn’t matter. But it does. And not just a lit-
tle. It matters a lot. Children fare much better when raised in a married, intact,
two-parent household. In addition, research indicates that both married men and
married women are happier, healthier, and wealthier than their unmarried counter-
parts. Furthermore, the best indicator of the violent crime rate in a community is
not race, ethnicity or even income, but the prevalence of marriage. Given that mar-
riage is good for children, adults and society, public policy should not shy away from
encouraging more of it.

A second objection comes from those who say we can not afford any new spending.
I agree. But this isn’t new spending. Funding for the fatherhood block grant would
come from cutting other federal spending. Some options could conceivably cut more
money than new spending promoting responsible fatherhood. If so, passage of the
Fathers Count block grant would actually save money, especially in the long run
when teenage pregnancy, crime, violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and child poverty
are reduced as a result of the return of the fathers.

A final objection is that government ought not to be in the business of social engi-
neering. But the truth is that in many low-income communities, fatherhood and
marriage have virtually disappeared. And not just recently; but for many genera-
tions.

How in the world does a young male growing up in a fourth generation fatherless
household and in a community largely without dads of the married variety, come
to understand what responsible fatherhood and marriage are all about? How does
simply dismantling government teach these young men the skills to be good, in-
volved and committed dads? And what of the children of these fathers? Do we just
sit back and say, “Gee, you should have chosen your pop better.”

Given the clear connection between fatherlessness and such social ills as poverty,
crime, educational failure, and substance abuse, we can not afford social indifference
on this issue. Government can not solve all of our nation’s ills, but what it can do

29Gene Steuerle, “Removing Marriage Penalties: Is This a Preventative Strategy?” Presen-
tation at The American Enterprise Institute conference on “America’s Discon: ‘Youth: To-
ward a Preventative Strategy.” Washington, D.C., May 16, 1996.


33

Statement of Wade F. Horn, President, National Fatherhood Initiative

My name is Wade F. Horn, Ph.D. I am a child psychologist and President of the
National Fatherhood Initiative, an’ organization whose mission is to improve the
well-being of children by increasing the number of children growing up with an in-
volved, responsible and loving father. Formerly, I served as Commissioner for Chil-
dren, Youth and Families within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Serv-
ices, and was a presidential appointee to the National Commission on Children. I
also served as a member of the National Commission on Childhood Disability and
on the U.S. Advisory Board on Welfare Indicators, T appreciate this invitation to tes-
tify on promising approaches to promoting fatherhood, including the Fathers Count
Act of 1998 (H.R. 3314) recently introduced by members of this Subcommittee.

‘THE CONSEQUENCES OF FATHERLESSNESS

The family is the primary institution through which we protect and nurture our
children, and upon which free societies depend for establishing social order and pro-
moting individual liberty and fulfillment. However, over the past several decades
the United States has been experiencing a dramatic decline in the institution of
marriage and reliance on two-parent families to raise children, Even more precisely,
what we have been experiencing has been a decline of fatherhood. When marriages
fail, or when children are born out of wedlock, it is almost always fathers who are
absent, The absence of fathers has, in turn, severely increased the life risks faced
by their children.

Almost 76 pereent of American children living in single-parent families will expe-
rience poverty before they turn eleven-years-old, compared to only 20 percent of chil-
dren in two-parent families! Children who grow up absent their fathers are also
more likely to fail at school or to drop out,? experience behavioral or emotional prob-
lems requiring psychiatric treatment,° engage in early sexual activity,* and develop
drug and alcohol problems.

Children growing up with absent fathers are especially likely to experience vio-
lence. They are three times more likely to commit suicide as adolescents® and to
be victims of child abuse or neglect,” Violent criminals are also overwhelmingly
males who grew up without fathers, including up to 60 percent of rapists,® 75 per-
cent of adolescents charged with murder,® and 70 percent of juveniles in state re-
form institutions, !°

In light of these data, noted developmental psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner has
concluded:

“Controlling for factors such as low income, children growing up in [fa-
ther absent] households are at a greater risk for experiencing a variety of
behavioral and educational problems, including extremes of hyperactivity
and withdrawal; lack of attentiveness in the classroom; difficulty in defer-
ring gratification; impaired academic achievement; school misbehavior; ab-

1 National Commission on Children, “Just the Facts: A Summary of Recent Information on
America’s Children and Their Families,” (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office,
1993).

2Debra Dawson, “Family Structure and Children’s Well-Being: Data from the 1988 National
Health Survey,” Journal of Marriage and Family 83 (1991), US, Department of Health and
Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics, “Survey of Child Health,” (Washington,
D.C.: US. Government Printing Office, 1993).

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics, “Na-
tional Health Interview Survey,” (Hyattsville, MD: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988).

‘Irwin Garfinkel and Sara McLanahan, Single Mothers and Their Children (Washington,
D.C.: Urban Institute Press, 1986); Susan’Newcomer and J. Richard Udry, “Parental Marital
Status Effects on Adolescent ‘Sexual Behavior,” Journal of Marriage and the Family (May 1987):

40.

US, Department of Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics, “Sur-
vey on Child Health,” (Washington, D.C.: U.S, Government Printing Office, 1993).

Patricia L. McCall and Kenneth C. Land, “Trends in White Male Adolescent Young-Adults
and Elderly Suicide: Are There Common Underlying Structural Factors?” Social Science Re-
search 23 (1994): 57-81; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Center for
Health Statistics, “Survey on Child Health,” (Washington, D.C. U.S. Government Printing OF

ice, 1993).

7 Catherine M. Malkin and Michael E. Lamb, “Child Maltreatment: A Test of Sociobiological
Theory,” Journal of Comparative Family Studies 25 (1994): 121-190.

® Nicholas Davidson, “Life Without Father,” Policy Review (1990).

*Dewey Cornell, et’al., “Characteristics of Adolescents Charged with Homicide,” Behavioral
Sciences and the Law 5 (1987): 11-23.

10M. Eileen Matlock, et al., “Family Correlates of Social Skills Deficits in Incarcerated and
Nonincarcerated Adolescents,” Adolescence 29 (1994): 119-130.


42

LESSNESS AND HIGH-RISK BEHAVIORS-—-SMOKING, DRINKING, DRUG USE,
VIOLENCE, ABUSE—BACK INTO THE CENTRAL CITY TO SERVE AS BEA-
CONS TO LIGHT THE PATHWAY TO PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION AND
COMMUNITY RESTORATION. DAY-IN AND DAY-OUT, WE WORK TO RE-
STORE THE HEART OF THE COMMUNITY—ITS FAMILIES.

THIS COMMITTEE HAS PLAYED A PIVOTAL ROLE IN SHAPING THE RE-
CENT REFORMS THAT ALLOWED THE STATES TO DEMONSTRATE THE EF-
FICACY OF A WORK FIRST APPROACH TO WELFARE. FOR THE MILLIONS
ore AMERICAN CHILDREN WHO REMAIN IN FATHERLESS HOMES, OR WHO

THE VICTIMS OF NEGLECT, FAMILY VIOLENCE AND ABUSE, ‘T SUBMIT
TO TO THIS COMMITTEE THAT WORK FIRST MUST BE COUPLED WITH WHAT
TENNESSEE GOVERNOR SUNDQUIST HAS APTLY CALLED “FAMILIES

IRST.
IR. CHAIRMAN, THE FATHERS COUNT BLOCK GRANT WOULD PROVIDE
A MUCH NEEDED BOOST TO RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD ACTIVITIES
ACROSS THIS NATION, BY ALLOWING THE STATES TO DEMONSTRATE THE
CRITICAL IMPORTANCE OF FAMILY DEVELOPMENT AS A LOGICAL NEXT
STEP IN THE WELFARE REFORM PROCESS. AS YOU KNOW, FOR DECADES
FEDERAL WELFARE POLICIES, AS WELL AS PUBLIC HOUSING, CREATED
INCENTIVES FOR FAMILY BREAK-UP AND DISINTEGRATION, WHICH CON-
FRIBUTED TO THE SPIRAL OF WELFARE DEPENDENCY ona OREN, a
JUST AS THE FAMILY IS THE NUCLEUS

THER I IS THE NUCLEUS OF A FAMILY. IT STEMS ONLY. MTEC. “THEN,
THAT THE FATHERS COUNT BLOCK GRANT WOULD USHER IN THE NE’
ERA OF FEDERAL POLICIES THAT FOSTER FAMILY RESTORATION AND
PRESERVATION.

THERE ARE THOSE ON THE EXTREME RIGHT AND LEFT WHO

THREE DECADES AGO WHEN HE DELIVERED HIS PROPHETIC STATE-
MENTS ON THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN FAMILY, AND THE AFRICAN-
AMERICAN FAMILY IN PARTICULAR.

ON THE FAR RIGHT, WE HAVE HEARD IT SAID THAT THIS BILL COULD
POSITION THE GOVERNMENT TO PLAY A DIRECT ROLE IN FAMILY DEVEL-
OPMENT—NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH. THIS BILL
DEVOLVES DIRECT ASSISTANCE NOT THROUGH GOVERNMENT, BUT
THROUGH THE GRASSROOTS, FAITH-BASED AND COMMUNITY- BASED
FAMILY REUNIFICATION EFFORTS THAT ARE SWEEPING AMERICA. THIS
BILL HAS THE POTENTIAL TO REVERSE BECADES OF GOVERNMENT POLI-
CIES THAT SEPARATED LOW-INCOME MEN AND WOMEN—AND MEN AND
THEIR CHILDREN—THROUGH POWERFUL DISINCENTIVES,

I HOPE THIS COMMITTEE WILL RESIST ANY EFFORTS TO REGULATE,
AND PROSCRIBE, FATHERHOOD ORGANIZATION RULES BY FEDERAL
AGENCIES THAT WOULD VIOLATE THE SPIRIT AND THE INTENT OF THIS
LEGISLATION, SUCH RULES, UNLESS CAREFULLY CRAFTED TO EMBRACE
THE SPIRIT AND INTENT OF THIS BILL, MAY HAVE AN UNINTENDED
BACKLASH THAT COULD HAMPER THE ABILITY OF SUCCESSFUL FATHER-
HOOD PROGRAMS TO CONTINUE TO INVOKE THE STRATEGIES AND TECH-
NOLOGY THAT HAVE ACHIEVED SO MUCH SUCCESS FOR SO MANY FA-
THERS, FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES. OF COURSE, FEDERAL OVERSIGHT
AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION AS A BASIS OF FUTURE SUPPORT
WOULD BE A PART OF THE PROGRAM, BUT THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE
EVALUATIVE TOOLS AND POLICY REGULATIONS SHOULD BE A COOPERA-
TIVE AND COLLABORATIVE EFFORT BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND PRI-
YATE EAMIERHOOD ORGANIZATIONS, BUSINESSES, AND RELIGIOUS IN-

ON THE FAR LEFT, WE FIND OTHERS WHO FEEL THE ROLE OF NON-
CUSTODIAL FATHERS SHOULD BE RELEGATED TO THAT OF AN ATM MA-
CHINE; THAT THE FATHER’S EXCLUSIVE ROLE IS AN ECONOMIC AND FI-
NANCIAL ONE. WE CATEGORICALLY REJECT THAT VIEW, FOR AS MY WIFE
FRANCES HAS OFTEN STATED, “IF YOU ASK A CHILD WHAT HE WANTS,
THE FIRST CONSIDERATION THAT COMES TO MIND WOULD NOT BE A FI:

[ANCIAL ONE. HE WOULD SAY, I WANT A DAD WHO CARES ABOUT ME—
WHO IS TENDER, LOVING AND KIND, WHO SHOWS UP WHEN I NEED HIM.
A DAD WHO LOVES AND RESPECTS MY MOM, AND WHO LOVES ME. A DAD
WHOM I COUNT ON.’”

THE INSTITUTE FOR RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD AND FAMILY REVI-
TALIZATION BELIEVES THAT TO RESTORE THE FABRIC AND FIBER OF


10

ployed. The majority of the fathers in the program have had little
to no contact or any meaningful relationship with their own fa-
thers. Second, there is a huge involvement with the criminal justice
system. Most of the offenses are minor and most of them are drug
related, usually possession.

But I think the problem goes a little deeper than that, Mr. Chair-
man. Some people look at these guys and say well, why shouldn't
they do the right thing. But because of some of the chaotic life-
styles they lead, one particular aspect I want to highlight, and
that’s the fact that most of the men in the program don’t have a
government-issued ID. Now why is that important? Because once
a person decides he wants to be involved in mainstream activity,
that is usually your license to participate. It is your access to a
bank account, it is your access to credit, it is your access to a lot
of things.

What does that mean? That means that the men in the program,
in order to get a driver’s license have to have a birth certificate,
a Social Security card, and two pieces of correspondence with their
address on it before they can obtain the government-issued ID.
Most of the men do not have possession of their birth certificate or
their Social Security card, and n must go to two different facilities to
obtain those particular documents prior to getting an ID. That is
one of the things that we require men to do at the onset at this
point. Prior to now, we did not do that. We found ourselves spin-
ning a tremendous amount of wheels when we tried to get a guy
into employment.

Although this profile is discouraging, through advocacy, edu-
cation, support, and a no-nonsense approach to providing services
2 the men, we have seen significant changes in attitudes and be-

avior.

I want to take a second to tell you about a little guy. This is a
guy who was born to a mom and dad who were married, who were
struggling to build their professional careers, and who lived in Bal-
timore’s public housing projects. At about 11 years of age, at the
child’s 11th year of age, the mom and dad were having significant
marital problems and decided to separate. Two years after their
separation, at age 13, this little boy began to inject heroin and sub-
sequently cocaine for approximately 17 years. It took 17 years of
H-E-L-L before that person was able to get the kind of support
where they could turn their life around and then take on these
mainstream behaviors and participate in the kind of activities all
of us either participate in and would like to see other people par-
ticipate in.

Unfortunately, that little boy I am talking about was me. Fortu-
nately, I was able to get the kind of support necessary to move for-
ward and get additional education, and then commit my life’s work
to working with young men who happen to be fathers from Ameri-
ca’s poorest communities. I say that because I am not unlike these
guys, or the other guys who are here from the program, I really
want you to take an opportunity to ask these guys candid questions
and me, because we will not turn our back on any question that
you ask. We want to help move forward the Fathers Count Initia-
tive and other legislation that would support the field.


70

» Child support systems need to be more responsive to the noncustodial parent's
economic position when it sets orders, and it needs to respond when earnings
change. To avoid saddling poor fathers with debts that they will never be able to
pay, initial orders should reflect current earnings, and when paternity is established
near the time of birth, arrears should not be charged. Most states expect fathers
to py about 30 percent of their gross income in child support, which is a substan-
tially higher share of their net income than it is for high income parents. Rational-
ization of orders by income and greater uniformity across states could help.

‘* To treat fathers who do the right thing equitably, we should treat them in the
same manner as mothers; thus, noncustodial parents who work and apa child sup-
port should be made eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), now avail-
able primarily for cust parents who are working. To avoid family-splitting in-
centives, the EITC could be split between the two noncustodial parents, if both are
working, or one could claim the entire credit, when only one is working, or fathers
could be limited only to any unused credit amount. This will be complicated to im-
plement, but we need public policies that line up better with our values.

Finally, I want to conclude with the words of one of the fathers who participated
in the PFS program:

“The opportunity to change, turn my life around through education and
the motivation to make a real impact in my son’s life for the better, it’s just
made all the difference in my life, and I believe in ime son’s] life too. We
have our hard times, but I think we get along better. We understand each
other a little bit more—a lot more, and Parents’ Fair Share was—if it
weren't—I don’t know what it would have taken to improve our relationship
that much if there wasn’t a forum and a guiding hand and all of that. We've
spent probably more time together since Parents’ Fair Share than we did all
the time before.”

Being a good father is difficult for us all. Being poor and unemployed makes par-
enting even harder. Developmentally and financially, all children need fathers in-
volved in their lives. The PFS experience demonstrates that it is possible to provide
valuable services, particularly around parenting. We have much to learn, however,
about effective employment and training services for low-income fathers. ‘But there
is a strong case for trying new approaches: no group has been bit hander by the
two decades long secular decline in earnings for those with low skills. And an impor-
tant part of the nation’s children depend on them.

Thank you for this opportunity to preview lessons about working with low-income
fathers from the PFS project.

———

Chairman SHAW. Thank you, Dr. Berlin.

Mr. Levin, do you want to be recognized for a unanimous consent
request?

Mr. Levin. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I would like to submit for the
record a summary of some of the initiatives the Department of
HHS has undertaken to help fathers support their children, includ-
ing the recent effort to improve outreach to fathers in the early
Head Start Program.

Chairman SHAW. Without objection.

(The information follows:]

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES ACCOMPLISHMENTS

FATHERHOOD AND CHANGES TO THE WELFARE SYSTEM HEARING

* In response to the President's directive in 1995 that all federal agencies
strengthen the roles of fathers in families, HHS established an intra-departmental
Fathers’ Work Group. Deputy Secretary Kevin Thurm serves as Chair of this work

group.

* In October 1997, HHS awarded $1.5 million in demonstration grants to states
for projects to improve child support enforcement (CSE), including collaboration
among CSE, Head Start and Child Care programs and programs to provide special
services to low income non-custodial fathers. A management information system is
being developed for the fatherhood programs and evaluations to assess the imple-


52

1, how to manage the pain they feel because they have not had relationships with

their own fathers and because they have broken their vows to be responsible for

their own child(ren);

2. how to promote their child(ren)'s development;

3. how to manage their sexuality;

4. how to conduct a job search and acquire job-related skills;

5. how to deal with child support enforcement; and

6. how to heal and strengthen their relationships with the mothers of their chil-
n.

dren.

In the past two decades, Congress has worked to strengthen the provisions of wel-
fare laws that require and enable recipients to become self sufficient. Enabling pro-
visions include various forms of transitional assistance such as health care, child
care, and transportation assistance for custodial mothers who leave the welfare
roles for work, Low-income, non-custodial fathers of children in fragile families need
similar transitional arrangements and on-ramp services, to help them find jobs and
adjust to the child support enforcement system, However, there is no place in our
system of supports for low-income children and families to develop the kinds of serv-
ices that community-based responsible fatherhood programs provide.

SUPPORTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD PROGRAMS THAT STRENGTHEN FRAGILE
‘AMILIES.

Failure to perceive the potential for family formation has led mainstream Ameri-
cans to structure a system of income supports that pose obstacles to family forma-
tion among low-income, unwed parents and their children, In a similar way, the Fa-
therhood Counts bill threatens to structure supports for fatherhood that will create
additional obstacles. These obstacles will occur because the draft bill treats pro-
grams that promote marriage more favorably than programs that first focus the at-
fention of fathers (and mothers) on their child(ren) and the steps parents must take
to promote their child(ren)’s well-being. To avoid these obstacles the Fatherhood
Counts bill should acknowledge and support fathers, like those who you have met
today, who despite having an out-of wedlock birth, are working to strengthen their
fragt families, Specifically, the bill should place on an equal footing programs that
explicitly promote marriage and comprehensive programs that, without explicitly
promoting marriage:

a. promote an understanding of childhood development;

b. teach parenting skills;

¢. help participants manage their sexuality;

d. supply assistance in finding and keeping a job;

e. offer participants advice on their obligations and rights in regard to the child
support enforcement and visitation; and

F encourage participants to become team parents.

Few community-based responsible programs operating in low-income communities
promote marriage as an explicit goal, However, these programs prepare fathers to
meet the needs of children, who are passive recipients of anything a parent has to
offer. They also help young fathers (and mothers) to develop the relationship skills
they need to sustain a long-term team parenting relationship, and if desired, a mar-
riage. However, a partner is not a passive recipient of a marriage proposal. A father
may support his child(ren) financially. He may persuade his former partner that he
can be trusted to care for the child(ren)’s physical, emotional, spiritual, and develop-
mental needs.

Despite these achievements, the local culture, economy, and environment sur-
rounding low-income communities provides few supports for marriage. As a result,
even a responsible father may be unable to persuade the mother of his child to ac-
cept his marriage proposal. Moreover, after having an opportunity to mature and
acquire new skills, either parent may decide that they are not ideally matched with
the person with whom they conceived a child, during their younger, more careless,

ars, Practitioners, who have worked with parents in low-income communities

now this, and therefore, have made child-well-being and fatherhood development,
not marriage, the primary goals of their services. These programs should not be pe-
nalized for understanding the needs of their clients.

INSTITUTIONALIZING THE RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD FIELD

Finally, the current version of the Fatherhood Counts bill requires the Secretary
of the Department of Health and Human Services to make grants to the states for
fatherhood projects run by private organizations. Tt provides just $20 million for the
administration and evaluation of individual efforts funded by this block grant pro-
gram. This strategy will encourage autonomy and innovation at the state level, but


50

in tight labor markets, employers are reluctant to hire men and women with this
profile. Like it or not, I believe that the Congress is going to have to adapt the na-
tional welfare reform effort to help these women acquire the skills they need to find
jobs.
In a similar way, promoting responsible fatherhood will require multiple strate-
gies, tailored to the barriers at impede family formation and maintenance in dif-
ferent groups. I believe that the current draft of the Fatherhood Counts bill does
not proceed from an understanding of the barriers to the formation and mainte-
nance of two-parent families in low-income, minority communities. Unless the bill
adopts a more flexible approach, so that communities can overcome different bar-
ners, it will not achieve the kind of success that this subcommittee’s efforts so richly
leserve.

In most communities, father absence is the result of a divorce or separation of a
mature couple. Their relationship began, was formalized in marriage, matured, and
then expired, after at least one of the spouses decided that they had had enough.
The role of public policy in such cases is to ensure that the non-custodial parent,
usually the Either, provides adequately for the child(ren). This will ensure that the
mother and child(ren) avoid poverty, which often results when the father withdraws
his, usually, higher income, after the divorce or separation. Then, to ensure that
conflict between the parents does not cause undue emotional stress for the child,
public policy may also require that the parents participate in some sort of mediation
process. Often, with this kind of help, the mother can get back on her feet, find her
way back into the labor market and into the community. In many cases she remar-
ries and returns to a middle class lifestyle. After a period of hurt, insecurity, and
confusion, the child(ren) adjust to their parents’ separation and to their new family
form. In short, the process of family formation has run its full course. The role of
public policy is to help families to bring their union to an amicable end and then
to recover.

This is not the situation we find among the low-skilled, unmarried, long-term wel-
fare recipients and the equally disadvanta; fathers of their children. Many of
these young women and men have their first children before they are mature
enough to manage a committed relationship and before they understand the full im-
plications of unmarried, unprotected sex and child bearing. Because rates of morbid-
ity, mortality, junemployment, underemployment, and incarceration of young men
are extremely high in their communities, there is little evidence of successful mar-
riage for young people to emulate. Finally, in part because of the sixty-year old leg-
acy of welfare, there is no cultural imperative to marry after a child is conceived
out-of-wedlock. Instead, a system of cash, housing, medical, job search, and child
care benefits replaces men as guardians and breadwinners for children and families.

Despite these significant obstacles, the fathers you met today desperately want. to
be involved in the lives of their children and to reconcile their relationships with
their partners, All around the country, practitioners like Joe Jones have rallied
around these fathers. They help them and their partners to recast the end of inno-
cence as the beginning of a process of family formation. While most observers see
the unwed birth as roblem, these parents, like most parents, want to see their
child(ren) as new begi nings.

‘Armed with this hope, the practitioners help low-income, unwed parents learn
that both the mother and father are critical to their child(ren)’s well-being and that
their personal feelings toward one another must be subordinated to the needs of
their child(ren). Thus, building a cooperative relationship between the parents,
which we call team parenting, is key to child well-being. As they focus on their
child(ren)’s needs, fathers learn how to subordinate their own needs to the needs
of others who depend on them. This helps them learn how to find and keep a ee
based on their current skills. It also helps them manage their earnings, so that they
can contribute to their child(ren)’s financial needs. Finally, it helps them to manage
their time, so that they can seek and pursue opportunities to improve their skills
and increase their earnings. In the process of developing team parenting skills,
young fathers and mothers acquire hope, maturity, and ability to forgive their part-
ners’ failures and shortcomings. These are the keys they need to sustain a marriage
and a family. They may even heal, build, or rekindle their personal relationships
and decide to m: one another. But first they must focus their joint attention on
the needs of their children.5

There is good news and bad news in recognizing that it will uire different
strategies to promote fatherhood in different communities. The good news is that

®Ronald B. Mincy and Hillard Pouncy, “There Must Be Fifty Ways to Start a Fi : Social
Policy and the Fragile Families of Low-Income, Noncustodial Fathers,” paper prepared for the
conference Fatherhood Movement: A Call to Action, Minneapolis, October 1996.


56

percent of the monies provided on parenting, employment, and marriage-promotion
programs for fathers (including both custodial and non-custodial fathers) whose
earnings are below average male earnings—roughly $30,000 per year. Instead, lim-
ited resources should be targeted on non-custodial parents with far lower incomes.
These non-custodial parents (most of whom will be fathers) are among those most
likely to benefit from employment-related services and whose children are most like-
ly to benefit from increased child support payments.

Second, the bill should also include a set of policies that would ensure that when
low-income non-custodial parents meet their obligations and pay child support, their
children’s financial circumstances improve. In many states currently, if a non-
custodial parent pays child support and his children receive TANF-funded assist-
ance, the child is “made no better off” than if the father did not meet his obligation
to pay support. This substantially reduces a father’s incentive pay support—a father
may not think paying child support is important if his children are no better off—
and leaves children deeper in poverty than if a substantial portion of child support
payments were passed-through directly to families and disregarded when determin-
ing eligibility for cash assistance. In addition to including provisions that would ad-
dress these issues, tax policies that reward non-cu: parents who pay their
child Support should also be considered. These provisions would cost money. Even
if H.R. 3314 can spend no more than $2 billion, I suggest that the Committee con-
sider allocating a portion of the bill's limited for these purposes.

Our current welfare system is inherently sexist—we expect women to assume all
of the parental roles of breadwinner, caretaker, and nurturer, while the men in
these low-income families have no required responsibilities except to pay child sup-
port if they are able. The intention of welfare reform was to move the custodial par-
ent into the workforce and up the job ladder. But, there is little federal commitment
to provide employment-related Services to noncustodial fathers. Public policies
should provide both economic opportunity and responsibility to both parents.

Research shows that statistically, children reared in single-parent families are at
greater risk of adverse outcomes than those reared in two-parent families. While
some studies have demonstrated that fathers have a notable positive effect on their
children’s well-being, others have revealed that fathers are peripheral to certain
measures of child and adolescent well-being.? New research, however, focused on the
qualitative dimensions of fathering, finds that father involvement does have a posi-
tive effect on some social-psychological outcomes for adolescents. In response to the

wing problem of children being raised in single-parent female-headed households,
fatherhood programs have sprung up around the country to encourage noncustodial
parents to be involved in the lives of their children through b job development and
training, assistance with child support enforcement offices, mediation, teaching par-
enting skills and promoting a stronger attachment to their children.

In addition, many of these children will spend some of their childhood years in
poverty. Many poor children in single-parent families will be able to escape from

overty—or avoid being pushed still deeper into poverty—only if they can benefit
from a combination of wages earned by their mother, earnings from their father
paid in the form of child support, and government assistance in the form of earned
income tax credits, child care subsidies, food stamps and health insurance. As moth-
ers earn income or as fathers pay child support, governmental assistance must not
be reduced dollar for dollar.

Child support is also a critical part of welfare reform—as welfare reform encour-
ages families to rely on earnings and eventually moves them off of public assistance,
income from the child support system will become an increasingly more important
mechanism for providing income to children in single-parent, low-income families.
In order for this to happen, however, the culture of the child support office must
change. Just as welfare reform during the early 1990s aimed to transform the cul-

18ee Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur. Growing Up with a Single Parent: What Hurts,
What Helps.rvard University Press, 1994.

2See Frank Furstenberg, Jr. “Intergenerational Transmission of Fathering Roles in At-Risk
Families.” Paper presented at the NICHD Family and Child Well-Being Network's Conference
on Father Involvement, October 1996 and Alan J. Hawkins and David J. Eggebeen. “Are Fa-
thers Fungible?: Patterns of Coresident Adult Men in Maritally Disrupted Families and Young
Children’s Well-Being” in Journal of Marriage and the Family 36: 963-972.

8See Marcy Carlson. “How Does Family Structure Matter?: Father Involvement and the Be-
havior of Young Adolescents.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Population Associa-
tion of America, Chicago, April 1998; Mare A. Zimmerman, Deborah A. Salem and Kenneth I.
Maton. “Family Structure and Psychosocial Correlates among Urban African-American Adoles-
cent Males” in Child Development 66: 1590-1613 and Kathleen Mullen Harris, Frank F.
Furstenberg and Jeremy K. Marmer. “Paternal Involvement with Adolescents in Intact Fami-
lies: The Influence of Fathers Over the Life Course” in Demography 35(2): 201-216.


60

through of child support under current law, the tax rate on child support for ex-
tremely low-income families is 100 percent. In most contexts—both liberals and es-
pecially conservatives—rebel against 100 percent tax rates. Even custodial families
that are receiving little or no TANF assistance benefit very little from the child sup:
port that is paid. The attached chart shows that the effective tax rates on the child
support paid to these families (the scenarios on the bottom half of the chart) are
well over 50 percent.

Meanwhile, the noncustodial father in Florida is paying a very large portion of
his earnings in child support, leaving him with very little income. For example,
then he ie earning only $7,500 he is expected to pay 44.4 pereent of his earnings
in child support, leaving him with an income level that is only 37.5 percent of the
poverty line, while providing the custodial family with no additional income. Is it
realistic to expect low-income fathers to pay these child support orders when their
children do not even benefit from them?

However, with a complete pass-through of child support the custodial family
would receive 70 percent of the child support that is paid by the noncustodial fa-
ther,® reducing the tax rate on child support from 100 Percent in many cases, to
only 30 percent.!° This increase in the portion of the child support that actually
reaches the children improves their well-being by increasing their income. The at-
tached table shows the resulting increases in the custodial family’s income if child
support is completely disregarded. As a percentage of poverty, the custodial family’s
income increases between 6 and 20 percentage points if all child support is passed
through to them. Passing through child support would especially help custodial
mothers with very little or no earnings.

‘Another way to accomplish this is by subsidizing child support payments. The tax
code contains a number of provisions that benefit children in low-income families,
such as personal exemptions, child tax credits and the EITC. These provisions, how-
ever, generally only benefit low-income families that have at least some earnings.
Because many custodial parents have little or no income, they are unable to take
full advantage of these tax provisions. Meanwhile, it is possible that noncustodial
parents have income that is low enough to quality for these provisions yet high
enough that they are able to gain some benefit from the credits and exemptions.
However, they are not eligible to receive these credits and exemptions, because their
children do not live with them. Children whose parents do not live together are
therefore deprived of the benefits of the tax code provisions that were specifically
established to assist them because they cannot take advantage of both parents’ in-
comes. These “unused” credits could be tallied and used to subsidize and incentivize
the child su port that is paid by the noncustodial parent. For example, $2,000 of
“unused” child tax benefits from the custodial mother from the past year could pro-
vide an additional payment of one dollar to the custodial family for each dollar the
noncustodial father paid in child support (assuming his order was also $2,000) in
the current year.

SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVING H.R. 3314

‘There are several concerns I have about some aspects of the bill and several areas
where I believe the bill can be improved. My major concern is that the bill is not
targeted to the low-income noncustodial fathers who are most in need of these serv-
ices. I know that you do not want to require a complicated means-test, but the needs
of very low-income noncustodial fathers are so great that the bill should include
much clearer targeting requirements. The only income targeting in the bill requires
at least 80 percent of the funds to go to services and programs for noncustodial fa-
thers with annual incomes below the state average income of male earners. This i
come level could fall between $25,000 and $35,000.11 This means that a majority
of the funds could go to serve middle-class, rather than the low-income fathers or
fathers with children on welfare who really need the services. The Chairman has
stated that the proposed legislation and today’s hearing seek to help low-income fa-
thers and fathers of children on welfare. I would therefore urge you to target the
bulk of this block grant to disadvantaged and low-income noncustodial fathers below
200 percent of poverty.

Second, I would argue that block granted programs are better administered when
local or state governments are required by a matching rate to invest their own

With one exception—in the last case, the effective tax rate increases to 44.7 percent because
at this specific level of earnings, the custodial family becomes ineligible for food stamps.

30The 30 percent tax rate is due entirely to the treatment of paid child support in the caleula-
tion of food stamp benefits.

31.Economic Report of the President, February 1998, Table B-33.


48

Comparison of Mothers and
Fathers

Solow Poverty

25

Do Nat Receive

Do Not Pay
Chita Suppor

Chidd Support

Not Below
Pe High income |
31%

Fecotve Pay Chikd

ose ‘=
Moms Dads
e
Non-Receiving g Non-Paying Low
Poor Moms Income Dads

vA
60% (

H

|
50% | | 45%

40% |

30% |

20%

10%

0%

Under 30 30-39 Over 40 Under 30 30-39 Over 40


20

Mr. DowninG, JR. No.

Chairman SHAW. Where was he, out on the streets all the time?

Mr. DownInG, JR. Yes.

Chairman SHAW. And where are you living now? Are you living
with your dad?

Mr. DowninG, JR. My grandmother.

Chairman SHAW. You are living with your grandmother? But
your dad gets over there and visits with you a lot?

Mr. Downline, SR. He is kind of nervous. We live together in our
own apartment.

Mr. DOWNING, JR. When you were on the street, Dad.

Chairman SHAW. I am talking about now.

Mr. DowniNnG, JR. Yes. I live with my father.

Chairman SHAW. Now you are together. Let’s get that clear. You
all want to get out in the hall and get your story straight? [Laugh-
ter.

Chairman SHaw. I’m sorry. I didn’t make myself clear.

But what is the difference? You don’t remember back when they
were thinking about foster care. You can’t remember back that far,
can you?

Mr. DowniNG, JR. No.

Chairman SHAW. But just thinking about that is probably pretty
scary to you right now. Isn’t it?

Mr. DOWNING, JR. Yes.

Chairman SHAW. That you could have been put in foster care and
really not have known your dad?

Mr. DOWNING, JR. Yes.

Chairman SHAw. Are you in school now? What grade are you in?

Mr. Downina, JR. Eighth now.

Chairman SuHaw. Eighth grade?

Mr. DowNnINa, JR. Yes.

Chairman SHAW. What do you want to become? What do you
want to do?

Mr. DownInG, JR. Be a police officer.

Chairman SHAW. Be what?

Mr. DowninG, JR. Police officer.

Chairman SHAW. Very good. But you have got to finish school
now and do that. You have got to go all the way through and use
your dad as both a bad example and a good example, as to what
you can do with yourself. Right?

Mr. DowNING, JR. Yes.

Chairman SHAW. You have seen, I guess you have seen him go
through the problems he has had with drugs, haven’t you?

Mr. Downlina, JR. Yes.

Chairman SHAW. And it’s tough when you get into that stuff to
get off of it, isn’t it?

Mr. Downlina, JR. Yes.

Chairman SHAW. But you have seen a real difference in him,
haven't you?

Mr. DOWNING, JR. Yes.

Chairman SHAW. That’s great to see.

Before we go onto the rest of the panel, does anyone else have
any questions for young Mr. Downing?


38

it must. This legislation would make a significant step toward reducing the three
decade long slide into fatherlessness and social decay.

I want to be clear. I'm not suggesting that merely passing a piece of legislation
is going to magically transform our increasingly fatherless nation into a nation of
real fathers and good husbands. Nor do I believe the Fathers Count Act of 1998 is
perfect legislation. 1 would, for example, prefer to see marriage as the over-ridin
goal of all fatherhood programs working with fathers supported through the bloc
grant, including those working with low-income fathers.

But the Fathers Count Act of 1998 is a start, And start we must, for until we
solve this crisis of fatherlessness we will be a nation in decline.

CONCLUSION

‘There exists today no greater single threat to the long-term well-being of children,
our communities or our nation, than the increasing number of children being raised
without a committed, responsible and loving father. Our nation is known for its opti-
mism and fondness for reforms of many sorts that promise to make society safer,
stronger, and richer. Yet, all social reforms we have attempted in the past, or may
attempt in the future, will likely pale in comparison to the good that would come
if we could turn back the tide of fatherlessness. This tide will not be turned easily,
and certainly not by changes in public policy alone. But public policy can have a
significant effect upon how potential parents view marriage ‘and parental respon,
sibilities.

As government at all levels proceeds with reforms in this area, it should keep in
mind both the importance of fathers to the well-being of children and the fact that
marriage is the most effective route to increasing the number of children growing
up with an involved, committed, and loving father. As in the past, states will be
tempted to, conclude 'that promoting responsible fatherhood is mostly about child
Support enforcement. But child support enforcement alone is insufficient to ensure
that every child grows up with a legally, morally, and socially responsible father.

‘The good news is that we are starting to see, for the first time in over thirty

ears, a leveling off of the number of children growing up in father absent homes.
believe that with concerted effort we can actually reverse the trend toward
fatherlessness within the next five years. Not simply stop the rise in fatherlessness,
but reverse it. Doing so will require that we stand firm on the issue of marriage,
for marriage is the most likely—not perfect, but certainly the most likely—pathway
to a lifetime father.

Simply put: children need their fathers, and men need marriage to be good fa-
thers. Effective public policy means encouraging more skilled fathering, more work,
and more marriages. The Fathers Count Act of 1998 does all three.

1 thank you for the opportunity to provide you with this testimony in support of
this important legislation, and would be pleased to answer any questions you might
have concerning my testimony.

a

Chairman SHAW. Thank you, Dr. Horn.
Mr. Ballard.

STATEMENT OF CHARLES A. BALLARD, FOUNDER AND CHIEF
EXECUTIVE OFFICER, INSTITUTE FOR RESPONSIBLE
FATHERHOOD AND FAMILY REVITALIZATION

Mr. BALLARD. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Members of
the Subcommittee, ladies and gentlemen. It is a great privilege to
be here today. I want to encourage you, Mr. Chairman, to stick to
this bill. I remember 22 years ago when I started my work with
fathers, there were many nay sayers who said it wouldn’t work. I
look around the country and this Subcommittee today, which is an
example I think of what can happen when you stick to it.

On what Dr. Horn has said, I agree with it, all of that, and had
some of that in my speech. Of course the panel before us was a
demonstration of that. I would like to kind of cut to the chase and
f° right to the heart of the matter. Most of the emphasis that we’re
looking at for fatherhood is placed upon the urban central commu-


69

search resulted in a decline in the expected average length of program participation.
Parents who participated in PFS were active in some service for an average of ap-
proximately five months.

Despite the absence of employment and earnings impacts during this early follow-
up period, PFS did lead to increases in child support payments. At this time, we
do not know whether the increases were simply the result of more fathers paying
child support through the official child support system, rather than paying it di-
rectly to the mothers of their children or if the increases were the result of fathers
who had not previously paid support beginning to do so. If this represents a true
net increase in support paid, it could be because PFS’ parenting program helped fa-
thers to understand the importance of paying child support, or it may be because
the program’s intake and enforcement processes discovered fathers with earnings
and income that were missed by the official systems monitored by child support
agencies.

PoLicy RECOMMENDATIONS

When these two PFS reports on the lives of fathers and the lessons learned about
program effectiveness are published at the end of the summer, an important body
of knowledge will be available about delivering services for very disadvantaged non-
custodial parents. While the story will not be complete—additional reports will fol-
low in about a year—it does suggest several lessons for future programming.

First, there is a tremendous need for services to help low-income fathers learn
about and be supported in the active roles they already play as fathers. While the
research literature on the value of the contribution noncustodial parents make in
the lives of their children is mixed, our own personal experiences as fathers suggest
that fathers matter to their children. Yet, parenting is a humbling, imperfect, trial
and error experience for us all. Most of us in this room have more resources to draw
upon in learning how to play that role—our own fathers, relatives, and well-baby
care that often brings ongoing advice from the family doctor, to name a few. Low-
income noncustodial parents could benefit from supports that helped to fill these
gaps when they exist.

ond, while the PFS experience indicates that it is possible to build the agency
partnerships required to deliver services to this population, it takes considerable on-
going work, and even with support, PFS sites fell short of its goals. Moreover, fa-
thers interviewed in the life history study provided many examples where they
thought the program had not delivered on its promises of better jobs or a more re-
sponsive child support system. These criticisms suggest that technical assistance
and adequate funding will be necessary for new programs to succeed.

Third, more work is needed to develop employment and training services that
would increase low-income fathers’ employment and earnings. A lack of fit between
the employment and training services emphasized in the sites and the needs of a
substantial portion of the PFS parents contributed to the program’s lack of overall
impacts on employment and earnings. Because the PFS sample was largely men
who had worked—with varying degrees of regularity—at low-paying jobs, the chal-
lenge for the program was to help them find better jobs. The employment and train-
ing system does not have a lot of experience in successfully obtaining these ki
of jobs. There were signs of a modest trend toward positive impacts

Angeles and Memphis; these sites emphasized skill-building acti
junction with work. In retrospect, that combined approach may have been better
suited to boost earnings. Suggested new approaches that might better meet the
needs of these fathers include:

* Developing new ways to combine work and skill-building. Doing so, may help
these men secure incremental wage increases which could raise their incomes over
time.

* Developing temporary community service jobs. While, on average, the fathers
in Parent’s Fair Share had some work experience, about a third of them had little
or no work experience at all. In some inner-city areas, unemployment rates remain
persistently high, suggesting that some men simply did not have the opportunity
to gain valuable work experience.

* Finally, as part of a longer-term strategy, provide job-retention services to help
low-income men hold the jobs they get.

Fourth, in the final analysis, our society still defines the fathers’ role as provider.
But when the men served in this program were working, they seldom had enough
income left over after meeting their own basic needs to contribute to the needs of
their children. As a result, they often feel the system is stacked against them. Con-
sideration should be given to two possible responses:



FATHERHOOD AND WELFARE REFORM

THURSDAY, JULY 30, 1998

House OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at jot am., in
room B-318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. E. Clay Shaw,
Jr. (Chairman of the Subcommittee), presiding.
[The advisory announcing the hearing follows:]

()


72

you that what we model in our program, we actually move back
into the community and we model the responsible fatherhood piece.

The women are held as equal partners in the relationship. But
again, the final decision has to be made by someone. In fact, if we
see mothers and fathers as unisex, then kids become confused.
There is difference in both roles or both parents. When as distinctly
seen by children, they grow up in a healthy way.

Chairman SHAW. I would like to add to that. That is an interest-
ing observation. I don’t think I have the sensitivity to have picked
up on it, but it is interesting that you did. I think what we are try-
ing to accomplish is to bring the father back from a position of
irrelevancy. You have got to have goals. I think that one of the first
things that you learn, and I know, Mr. Ballard, that you worked
very hard on this, as does Mr. Jones and other programs such as
yours, you have got to first talk about self-esteem. These guys are
worthless when they come in and they feel worthless. They are ir-
relevant to their family. They are not the fathers. They don’t have
any goals in life. It is just a completely drifting back and forth. You
first have got to teach them they are somebody.

I really like that thing, if it is going to be, it has got to be me.
I think bringing that in, and if it’s a—I don’t think any of us are
goin to get bogged down as to who is going to be the head of the

family or whether it’s going to be shared power, but I think that
we all need goals and the goal has to be at least to be part of that
nucleus. I think that is something that all of us are going to have
to work on.

Mr. Camp.

Mr. Camp. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I haven’t been here all
that long, but as we debated welfare reform—first, I want to thank
all of you for coming and taking the time to testify.

But as we debated welfare reform, we had a goal. That goal was
that able-bodied people work. There were many people who testi-
fied before this Subcommittee and fought that tooth and nail and
said you will destroy the system. You will only impact the rolls be-
tween 1 and 3 percent. We have seen in some parts of the country
welfare rolls declining up to 40 percent. We have seen very positive
change. Now we have seen the studies come back that the people
that have left welfare have actually gone to work, the University
of Oregon and others, that I know all of you are aware of.

The ideal or goal that marriage be promoted I think is something
that is critical because it is going to set a standard. Clearly from
the testimony we have heard, we are not there yet in many com-
munities. Some are further along. But it isn’t something that is
going to happen tomorrow. But if you don’t set that lofty goal,
which may seem unattainable now, and may even seem counter-
productive, as the work requirement we were told was counter-
productive. But clearly that has not been the case. I just want to
say think that is something that we have got to do.

en just last, Dr. Primus, I just want to make a point that your
testimony, what we have tried to do is talk about support after wel-
fare as well. Clearly, under our changes families are getting more
money after welfare reform, after they move off welfare in terms
of the child support than they were getting under the old system.
What we want to do is not look at a model that rewards the de-


71

mentation of the demonstration projects will be conducted during the next 12
months.

« HHS awarded $10 million in block grant funds in October 1997 and will award
a similar amount in FY 1998 to all 50 states, DC and territories to promote access
and visitation of children by their non-custodial parents. This program was proposed
by President Clinton in ‘his 1993 welfare reform proposal and authorized in

+ HHS has incorporated boys and young men into National Strategy to Prevent
Teenage Pregnancy by funding demonstration programs through the Title X Family
Planning Program and other efforts.

* In 1997, HHS added a new component to the Early Head Start Research and
Evaluation Project, the Fathers Studies Project, which examines the role of fathers
in early childhood development and how program interventions can strengthen and
improve father involvement, This project is being funded by the Head Start Bureau,
the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, the Office of the
Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, and the Ford Foundation.

© Since 1993, HHS has supported the evaluation of Parents’ Fair Share, a dem-
onstration project for low income fathers who owe child support but are not payin,
it, HHS, Labor, Agriculture, Pew Charitable Trusts, the Ford Foundation, an
AT&T have invested more than $10 million in the demonstration.

* HHS, under the leadership of the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and
Family Statistics, has completed a multi-year collaborative project to review the
state of research on fathers. The Forum has just issued a report that contains the
results of this review and recommendations for how government research in this
area can be improved. The Report “Nurturing Fatherhood: Improving Data and Re-
search on Male Fertility, Family Formation and Fatherhood” is available on the
Internet at http:/ /aspe.os.dhhs.gou | fathers | fhoodini /htm.

+ Presently, HHS is taking @ more systematic and thorough approach to incor-
porating fathers’ involvement in our programs and research. We are working to re-
move barriers within and across agencies, to promote positive partnerships, and to
increase the visibility of fatherhood issues with the public and media.

Mr. LEVIN. I am going to leave, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for
this hearing. I think this panel indicates how broad based this ef-
fort needs to be.

I just may say to Mr. Ballard, you say in your testimony that you
believe to restore the fabric and fiber of American communities, we
must revive the nucleus of the family, the father. I assume you
mean the father and the mother?

Mr. BALLARD. Well, in many communities fathers are seen as the
lead person, the priest of the household, the one everyone looks to
when there needs to be authority and guidelines. We just brought
this to the forefront. It is something that women accept, not as so-
called browbeaters or head of the household, so to speak, but men
who are serving heads. We promote in our program that men must
first serve their wives and their children, then he becomes a head.

Mr. LEVIN. I would hope we could come together even if there are
differences about that. I hope that doesn’t keep us from attacking
this problem.

Mr. Camp. It didn’t sound like a difference to me.

f Chairman SHaw. I can say that it gives us all something to strive
for.

Mr. LEVIN. I think my wife feels we are both the nucleus.

Mr. BALLARD. Well, see, in any corporation, and the family is the
same way, there has to be a final decision made. Sometimes the
two people may not agree. Someone has to make the final decision.
In many cases, that is the father. I don’t think we need to really
get caught up on this issue because right now they are not at home
in the first place. We have to get them back. But I wanted to show


74

know, but he seems to think that there is a way to begin that. Re-
alizing that is very far down the road for some people. I am not
saying that you are going to see instantaneous results there. These
are very long-term efforts. But I think the ideal is critical. I think
we have agreement on that. I appreciate that and thank you.

Chairman SHAW. Wendell is chafing at the bit over there.
(Laughter.]

Mr. Camp. He’s been here before. We better let him talk.

Mr. Primus. Just a couple of responses to what you said, Con-
gressman Camp. One is I think most of us never had a problem
with the work. I think there was unanimous agreement that work
was important.

Mr. Camp. Not right away. It took a while to get there. We all
got there, that’s true. We eventually linked arms and jumped over
that vine.

Mr. Primus. The issue was time limits and block grants. The
issue was never work, I would submit. I guess even having recog-
nized the importance of work, I think we in this society have to rec-
ognize that there are going to be some parents, both custodial and
noncustodial, that aren’t going to be able to earn enough in our free
market society. They may not have the God-given gifts to earn a
livable wage. In those situations, we are going to have to look for
government assistance to help them.

But the key I think, and most States have now recognized this
in terms of earnings disregards and EITC, that as government—
when mothers earn, we don’t reduce government assistance dollar
for dollar. I guess when I look at that chart and see the 100-
percent tax rates, why should those fathers pay? I think we need
the regulation. They ought to pay, but they also—it needs to be re-
inforced by a set of economic incentives.

Even if they are off of welfare, and I accept the goal of trying
to reduce welfare by getting families into the work place, why not
subsidize. I mean if the mother can’t use up all of the tax credits
that she is entitled to, why not give them over to the father to
incentivize his child support payments and then add to his check
as we transmit it to the mother.

I guess I am a little—my final point, I think it’s a little too early
to call welfare reform a success yet. 1 mean——

Chairman Suaw. You are still waiting on the recession. [Laugh-
ter.

Mr. Primus. No. I’m not waiting on the recession. I am waiting
on to see whether or not we have really improved child well-being.
I think you and I would both agree that’s what we are all about.
My understanding of some of the people that are leaving the rolls
is only about 50 percent have earnings, not all. I think the jury is
still out.

But one of the things about welfare reform, it has enabled at the
local level us to have this discussion. Some of the funding that you
have provided, TANF and welfare to work, can actually be used
today to start and seed some of the vision you have in the Fathers
Count bill.

Mr. Camp. I would just say, and I appreciate those comments, it
took 40 years to get the work requirement. I am not sure there was


31

Chairman SHAW. Very good. Thank you. Thank all of you. We ap-
preciate your being here.

Our next panel, many are very familiar faces and people we have
worked with on the past on this and other matters. Wade Horn. Dr.
Wade Horn is president of the National Fatherhood Initiative in
Gaithersburg, Maryland. Charles Ballard, founder and chief execu-
tive officer of the National Institute for Responsible Fatherhood
and Family Revitalization here in Washington, DC. Dr. Ronald
Mincy is a senior program officer of the Ford Foundation. Dr. Wen-
dell Primus, who we have known for many years as a staffperson
on this Subcommittee, now with the Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities in Washington, DC. And Gordon Berlin, who is a senior
vice president of Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation of
New York, New York.

ain, we have your full statement which will be made a part
of the record. We would invite you to proceed as you see fit and
summarize if you would. We are going to try to conclude this hear-
ing before 1, as we do expect votes approximately at that time.

Dr. Horn.

STATEMENT OF WADE F. HORN, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL
FATHERHOOD INITIATIVE

Mr. Horn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be here
today. I am here representing the National Fatherhood Initiative
and to testify in strong support of the Fathers Count Act of 1998
for four reasons. First, by supporting skill-building programs for fa-
thers, the bill sends a clear message that fathers do matter, and
not just financially. Second, by including as one of its purposes the
promotion of marriage, it contains a strong message that marriage
is the most effective pathway to responsible fatherhood. Third, by
including $2 billion in block grant funding, it will help to nurture
and support the growth of community-based fatherhood programs
all across America. Fourth, by helping low-income men become and
stay employed, it enhances not only their own life prospects, but
also their viability as responsible fathers and as marital partners.

There are of course some who have objections to this bill. Chief
among them is the fact that the bill explicitly promotes marriage.
government, in the view of these critics, has no business promotin;

ersonal values. Instead, they insist that government policy should

e neutral when it comes to things like marriage. This argument
might be persuasive if not for the fact that for the past 30 or 40
years, government policy rather than being neutral to marriage has
actually punished marriage. For example, when two-earner couples
head for the altar instead of cohabiting, their taxes actually go up,
in some cases, costing families with modest incomes $5,000 or more
annually. Things are even worse for low-income couples.

This would not be so bad if marriage didn’t matter, but it does,
and not just a little. Marriage matters a lot. Children fare better
if they are raised in married intact two-parent households. Men
and women when they are married are happier, healthier, and
wealthier than their unmarried counterparts. The best indicator of
violent crime in a community is not race, it’s not ethnicity, it’s not
income, it is the prevalence of marriage. Given that marriage is
good for children, good for adults, and good for communities, why


17

can be, the best fathers we can be, and the best assets and to be
as productive to our communities as we can possibly be.

So with that, I would like to say that programs like these has
helped to save my life and lives like Paul and some of the men who
you see behind us. You can’t ask for no more than that. In urban
communities, programs like this are needed, because these pro-
grams give you hope, give you inspiration, give you the support
that you need. We know we deal with the issues that pertain to us
that we can identify and relate with.

T have been hearing the word marriage being thrown around this
morning. We have had many our clients in our program who have
had interest in marriage. However, they are still in the process to
reach the point of marriage in dealing with your individual self and
allow your mate to deal with herself as well as dealing with each
other. So with programs like this, you are able to deal with those
processes such as attitude adjustment, such as Dr. Dad, such as
compare and compromise in particular situations so that you can
be productive and/or as productive as you can possibly be in mar-
riage. You know, we stress that. That is one of our goals.

owever, but before we get to this particular goal, we have to
deal with the self. We practice a saying in the Young Fathers Pro-
gram and here at Healthy Start, the 10 most important two-letter
words is, “If it is to be, it is up to me.” Right? Well, I say that. I
also say, “If it is to be, it is up to we.” Because sometimes me needs
support from we. That is what we are here to do at Healthy Start.

you.

Mr. Jones. Mr. Chairman, one of the things that Anthony did
not mention is he recently was promoted from an entry level posi-
tion in the Men’s Services Program to a men’s services counselor.
He also will be entering into his junior year of college at Coppin
State as a psychology major this coming September.

Chairman SHAW. I guess that makes him marriage material.
(Laughter.]

Mr. JONES. That’s right.

Chairman SHAW. Mr. Downing, we will hear from you and then
from young Mr. Downing.

STATEMENT OF VICTOR DOWNING, SR., PARTICIPANT,
BALTIMORE CITY HEALTHY START PROGRAM; ACCOM-
PANIED BY VICTOR DOWNING, JR.

Mr. Downine, Sr. OK. I am kind of nervous too.

Chairman SHAW. We are, too. Just take your time.

Mr. Downine, SR. I am going to start out. I also came up with
a single parent. My father wasn’t there for me. My mom raised
nine of us. As I got older, I saw that she needed help with the bills
and stuff like that, so I did what I had to do to bring in the money
to help her out. That was to sell drugs. So, I was a drug dealer.

As time went on, I met his mom. Then he came in the picture.
Then I was doing this to also take care of him because that is all
I knew, was how to sell drugs. I never had a job before. I came up
selling drugs. My brother taught me how to do that. We went on
from there.

As we went on, we got into some drug wars, I mean fighting
other drug dealers over territory, something that wasn’t even ours.


23

garding psychological and psychiatric services. We do do it, but it
is on a very intimate basis.

Mr. LeEvIN. Thank you.

Chairman SHAW. Mr. Camp.

Mr. Camp. I want to thank you, Mr. Jones. I apologize for coming
in a little late. I have read your statement. I want to thank you
for coming here. I want to thank all of you for the honesty and
courage really and for speaking from the heart. What I have heard
has been very very meaningful.

I did want to ask just a couple of questions. I realize this is a
federally funded program. Are there any restrictions that you are
seeing that is making it difficult for you to operate the Healthy
Start Program?

Mr. JONES. Yes. The biggest restriction is that there are no dedi-
cated dollars for my program. We just decided in Baltimore to use
some of the dollars that were earmarked for the infant mortality
program, primarily for the services to pregnant women, to develop
this pilot program called men’s services. My program in the en-
tirety is currently on the cuttingblock. Our budget last year was $5
million. Healthy Start has put a cap on our program this year,
where we will only receive up to $2.5 million. In essence, it will
decimate the Men’s Services Program.

Mr. Camp. Nationwide, how many Healthy Start Programs of
this kind are there? Do you know?

Mr. JONES. In 1992 the Department of Health and Human Serv-
ices funded 15 Healthy Start Programs around the country. The
next year they added seven projects that were called Special
Projects. In the last several years, they have expanded to approxi-
mately 50-something communities around the country. They may
even do further expansion. However, the further expansion is with
reduced dollars that again, will decimate the Men’s Services Pro-

Mr. Camp. Thank you. Again, I just want to thank all of you for
coming. It is not an easy thing to do. I think it is very helpful what
you have done. I admire what you have done. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman SHAW. Mr. McCrery.

Mr. McCrery. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank all of you for
coming and joining us today and offering your testimony.

Mr. Jones, how many men are in your program?

Mr. JONES. There are 200, 100 in west Baltimore and 100 in east
Baltimore.

Mr. McCrery. And are there other programs similar to yours in
the Baltimore area?

Mr. JONES. There’s a couple of small programs that aren’t well
resourced. The other program, brother or sister program, if you
will, is the Young Fathers Responsible Fathers Program which is
a State-funded initiative by the Glendening administration that
has really been strongly supported by Alvin Collins, who is the sec-
retary of the Department of Human Resources at the State level.
They have a program that is in Baltimore City. It is the program
that Anthony Edwards graduated from. They also have I think five
programs in other jurisdictions around the State.


19

I stayed out there for a while on the corners. They would come
through and pick me up and take me to group meetings. I would
duck them up when I saw a van coming and stuff like that. I would
hide because I didn’t want them to see me. But they never gave
up on me. They would see me on the corner. They would come into
drug areas and get out the van and pull me up off the corner and
ask me when it was I was coming back, I don’t have to hide from
them, and ask me how my son was doing. I would tell them that
he was doing all right. I would just tell them I would be down
there and I would never go. They would keep coming.

One day, I decided to go back down there. I went back down
there. I started taking my son to the meetings and stuff like that.
They got to know him. He got to know them real good. I just de-
cided that I was tired, tired of doing what I was doing. I wanted
to become a father because all the guys in there were doing so
good. There were some guys in there that had also used before and
they had jobs and they had houses. They were doing good. They
had their own places. I decided that I wanted to straighten up. I
went back to them again and told them that I wanted some help.
But they didn’t trust me. They thought I was going to go back out
there and do the same thing again. They kept telling me to wait
and see what I was going to do.

As time went on, I went back out there again. I had got a job
and I started stealing and cheating, doing whatever I can to get the
drugs. I guess I hit my rock bottom because I got locked up. I was
in central booking. When I went through central booking I couldn’t
go through that again. Central booking, I ain’t wanting to go back
over there again. I came out of central booking. Ever since I came
out of central booking, I have been off of drugs. That’s been for 7
months, going on 8. I got a job now. As a matter of fact, I have
a job. I am working on another part-time job. I have my own apart-
ment. It’s well-furnished. I have a closer relationship with my son.
That is my best friend there. I just have been doing great thanks
to the program for not giving up on me.

T still go to the meetings when I can, when I have time off. They
are always there for me. I also was going through something as far
as relationship too. I brought that to the table. They listened. They
gave me some feedback on it. I also have four other children. I am
not with either one of their mothers, but I now pay child support,
which I wasn’t doing. I send them money every other week. Every-
thing has been going great for me so far, as far as me staying
clean.

Chairman SHAW. Let’s hear from your son then.

Mr. Downing. Pull that microphone up and pull it down just a
little. That’s right.

How do you like having a real dad now?

Mr. JONES. He said he would rather you all to ask him questions.

Chairman SHAW. All right. I'll start out then. How have you seen
your, dad coming along as far as have you seen a real change in

im?

Mr. Downlina, JR. Yes.

Chairman SHAW. Describe how he was when you first can re-
member him back when you were a real small child. Did you see
much of him then?


32

on Earth should public policy shy away from encouraging more of
it?

By emphasizing the need to increase the number of children liv-
ing with married fathers, I don’t mean to imply that divorced or
unwed fathers should be tossed overboard. Children need their fa-
thers. The fact that their fathers don’t live in the same household
does not lessen that need. But in working with divorced and never-
married fathers, we should not shy away from the ideal of married
fatherhood. To do otherwise sends an ambiguous message to the
next generation of fathers. For their future children’s sake, we need
to be clear that men should wait until they are married before fa-
thering children. Once married, they should do everything they can
to ensure their marriage stays strong and vital.

A related objection comes from libertarians. They say that gov-
ernment ought not to be in the business of social engineering. But
the truth is that in many low-income communities today, father-
hood and marriage have disappeared, and not just recently, but for
many generations. How on Earth does a young man who is growing
up in a fourth generation fatherless household in a community
where there are no married fathers to look to, how on Earth do we
expect dismantling government alone is going to teach that man
how to be a good, responsible man, a responsible father, and a lov-
ing husband? The answer is it ain’t going to happen.

at about the fatherless children? Do we just shrug our shoul-
ders and say gee, you should have picked a better father when you
were born? The fatherless children need and deserve our support
as well. Dismantling government alone is not going to fix that.

Given the clear connection between fatherlessness and such so-
cial ills as poverty, crime, educational failure and substance abuse,
we simply cannot afford social indifference on this issue. Govern-
ment cannot solve all of our Nation’s ills. But what it can do it
must do. I am not suggesting that any piece of legislation, and cer-
tainly not this one, is going to magically transform America from
a fatherless Nation into one full of real fathers and good husbands.
Nor do I believe that this legislation is perfect. In particular, I
think there are ways to strengthen the requirement that marriage
be set as an ideal, not just for some pro; is supported by this
block grant, but for all programs supported by it.

The Fathers Count Act of 1998 is the start. And start we must,
because if we do not, we will continue to see our Nation slide into
fatherlessness, and we will be a nation forever in decline. The good
news is we are starting to see for the first time in over 30 years
a leveling off of the number of children growing up in fatherless
households. I believe that with concerted effort, we can actually re-
verse the trend of fatherlessness, not just stem the tide, but re-
verse it in the next 5 years. But doing so will require that we take
a firm stand, not only on supporting the importance of responsible
fatherhood, but marriage as the most likely pathway to a lifetime
father for a child.

Effective public policy means encouraging more skilled fathering,
more work, and more marriages. The Fathers Count Act of 1998
does all three, which is why it has my wholehearted endorsement.
Thank you.

(The prepared statement follows:]


14

where poor fathers reside have very few households where the model of marriage
exists, Fatherhood programs could, for example, add an addendum to existing cur-
Heala that outlines the principles of marriage and hold discussion ‘Froups that
would allow fathers an opportunity to be introduced to this institution, this is what
the Men’s Services program is in the process of doing. There are other activities that
can be designed that could also address this issue.

For example, we have received funding from the Ford Foundation to develop a
concept called “Team Parenting.” This concept involves working with low income
parents, even if they are not a couple, and helping them mediate their relationship
so that the children maintain access to both parents.

We believe that this strategy will lay a foundation, not only for an effective paren-
tal relationship, but also for a relationship that has the potential for marriage.

Finally, a preliminary cost-benefit analysis of the Men’s Services program has
shown that the program has already paid for itself in reduced incarceration costs
alone. Moreover, it has dramatically benefitted the young fathers and their families
in East and West Baltimore in terms of expected future wages, given the program's
emphasis on linking the male participants to livable wage employment:

fe are currently involved in the Partnership for Fragile Families initiative, also
funded by the Ford Foundation. This initiative encourages partnership between
state and local child support agencies and community based fatherhood programs
to encourage fathers to acknowledge paternity and to pay child support

At the same time, the Office of Child Support Enforcement provides a funding
stream that allows fatherhood programs to offer support, education, and training.
As welfare reform continues to evolve, we believe that we should encourage our fa-
thers to acknowledge their paternity and financially support their children, while
at the same time helping child support officials understand that a “collections only”
mind set is not the way to engage America’s poorest fathers.

In short, Healthy Start is a unique and wise investment, an excellent example of
a true partnership between the public and private sector and urban America.

Chairman SHAW. Thank you, Mr. Jones.
Mr. Hope, would you pull the microphone over to you? Put it
right close to you. We now recognize you for a statement.

STATEMENT OF PAUL HOPE, PARTICIPANT, BALTIMORE CITY
HEALTHY START PROGRAM

Mr. Hope. My name is Paul Hope. I am 25 years old. I am the
biological father of two children, but father of many. I don’t really
know where to begin. I am not really a big speaker, but I'll start
from the beginning. A few years ago before I came into the group,
I wouldn’t be the type of person that you would want to meet. I
can even say my first encounter with the group, I went to the
group with a pistol because that’s what I felt as though I needed
to get by in the area where I lived in. So the group, Healthy Start,
our fatherhood group is like a family. Where though you couldn’t
go to your friends or your family and talk about certain things, you
can go there and talk about it.

Like I said, I wasn’t a very pleasant person. I mean I very sel-
dom smiled, joked, played, or anything. I took things for what they
were here and now. I wasn’t thinking about tomorrow or the next
day. They wasn’t here so I wasn’t worrying about them. It was here
and now. That was what I was worrying about.

Since I joined the program in 1993, I went through the LEAD
Initiative Program. I graduated from it. My children and my kids’
mom have never been on welfare, never. Even though we are not
together, she still hasn’t been on it. That is something that I feel
as though that I got to do. It basically teaches you for where we
live at, like in the city of Baltimore, we get this false sense of fa-


73

pendents, but continues to make sure that more of those child sup-

rt dollars actually improve the life of that family after welfare.
i think you would agree that is the case now under the current
law.

But I think this has been a very good discussion. I look forward
to working with all of you as we continue to move on this legisla-
tion. Mr. Ballard, I would just say I think the idea of servant lead-
ership is a very good one. I appreciate your bringing that forward.
Thank you.

Mr. Batcarp. Thank you. I would like to just make a comment.
Joe Jones from Baltimore indicated that there are few marriage
models in the central city. We can’t preach marriage. We have
more churches today than ever before and the problems are worse.
Religion itself is not the answer. There has to be a deeper sense
of spirituality, a respect for self and community and family.

What this agency does, it takes young couples who have been
trained by us and we move them back into the community. The:
buy homes so they are a seed in the community, what we call
human antibiotics, to not only turn the problems around, but to in-
crease viability for those communities. I think that marriage must
become the cornerstone of America again. Unless it does, all the
money in the world would not get us any place. I think the Sub-
committee is right on target. That is why I support the bill. I could
not support it if marriage was not a linchpin of it because we not
only support it in terms of a precept, but our examples of moving
to the worst communities in America, southeast and so on, I think
testifies to that.

Mr. Camp. Thank you.

Mr. MINCY. Seventy percent of African-American children today
are born out of wedlock. Forty percent of Hispanic children are
born out of wedlock. My question to the Subcommittee has long
been how do you promote marriage in a context in which most chil-
dren are born after the fact? The response I have is not one that
says that marriage is not an ideal, but it deals with what the prac-
titioner and what the families in those communities deal with on
a day-to-day basis, and asking very pragmatic questions about
what the on-ramp to family formation is in these communities. I
don’t want to be misunderstood.

Also, as Joe Jones commented, we are encouraging the whole
field, not just individual programs, to learn about the practice of
team parenting, to teach couples how to have a dialog, how to man-
age difficulties and conflicts. Those are the cornerstones of what
marriage is about. But the devil is going to be in the details of this
bill. When you, if you put allocation mechanisms in the bill that
reward programs that tell you that they are going to be promoting
marriage, my experience and my sense of the field is that you will
skew it funding, you will skew what is happening in commu-
nities in ways that do not build upon the work that is taking place
in the field over the last 20 years.

I think we can get there, but I think pragmatically we have to
be very careful.

Mr. Camp. I appreciate your comment that we can get there, be-
cause I think that is where we need to go. Clearly, Mr. Jones is
developing that kind of program on his own. So, he knows. I don’t



58

is problematic given that the economic circumstances of young men, particularly

those with limited skills and education credentials, have been decaying at an alarm-

ing rate over the past two decades. The inflation-adjusted average annual earnings

of 25- to 29. year-old men without a high school diploma fell by 35 percent between
an :

This suggests that the payoff from tighter enforcement may be constrained by the
inability of some noncustodial fathers to pay.

The problem is that low-income, noncustodial fathers face significant barriers to
employment, many of which are the same as the employment barriers faced by poor,
custodial mothers. These barriers include a range of problems that make them unat-
tractive to employers or make it difficult to find available jobs, such as: low levels
of educational attainment; criminal records and other legal problems; a lack of
transportation: substance abuse problems; the disappearance of low wage, blue-
collar, industrial jobs; an erosion in real wages in the low-wage sector, changin;
skill requirements; the declining value of a high school diploma; the relocation of
manufacturing jobs from the central cities to the suburbs and discrimination. All of
these barriers prevent fathers from obtaining jobs and being able to pay child sup-

port.

Fathers are also discouraged from paying child support by the child support sys-
tem itself, as many noncustodial parents deem the system to be fundamentally un-
fair.‘ This is particularly true for low-income noncustodial parents who frequently
are presented with support obligations that far exceed their ability to pay or are
not adjusted appropriately when their earnings decrease. As a result, many of these
noncustodial parents do not make the required child support payments and accumu-
late a debt in the amount of owed child support; are charged with paying retroactive
support and Medicaid childbirth costs (plus interest and court costs) dating back to
the time the child first received AFDC or TANF and in some states dating back to
the child’s birth or default on their orders and as a result incur fines, have their
wages withheld, or have liens placed on their property.

fe existence of this child support debt—which can be substantial—can be
daunting to noncustodial parents in low-wage jobs. Because the noncustodial par-
ents may feel they never will be able to pay off their child support fully even if they
are working, these arrearages may actually deter them from seeking stable employ-
ment or making child support payments, encourage them to move into the under-
ground economy, or cause them to completely sever ties with the family. All of these
are adverse outcomes from a societal viewpoint.

Funds from H.R. 3314 should be used to help fathers overcome these obstacles
to paying child support those created by poor labor market opportunities and those
created by the child support system itself by providing them with services that will
make them more employable or capable of earning higher wages or by creating jobs
for those who are the hardest to serve.

Building Stronger Relationships Between Noncustodial Fathers and Their Children

Second, while welfare reform will cause poor children to become financially more
dependent on the earnings of both parents to keep them out of poverty, children in
most families—regardless of welfare reform—also benefit from emotional support
from both of their parents, However, many noncustodial fathers face considerable
barriers to becoming involved in the lives of their children. In many instances, they
themselves lacked a role model for good parenting skills. Also, without a pay check
some males feel that they do not deserve to see their children. The concept, of “
ther” is tied closely to being a breadwinner and the lack of employment often be-
comes a significant barrier. Child support rules also affect father involvement. From
the male’s perspective the child support system is only interested in his role as
breadwinner, not his role as parent. There are many strong tools enforcing the pay-
ment of monies through child support but little or no effort is expended in enforcing
access and visitation rights.

Services should therefore be provided to fathers which will help them to build
stronger relationships with their children and overcome these barriers to their pa-
rental involvement. Again, monies from H.R. 3314 should be used to fund such pro-
grams, including programs to help instill better parenting skills, mediation, and
peer support services. It should be noted, however, that in some families domestic
violence makes positive interaction between the noncustodial parent and children

4See Matching Opportunities to Obligations: Lessons for Child Support Reform from the Par-
ents' Fair Share Pilot Phase, Manpower Demonstration Rest Corporation, April 1994,

74-5 and Working, with Low-Income Cases: Lessons for the Child Support Enforcement System
ym Parents’ Fair Share, Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, Ma) .

Parents’ Fair Share, Manpower Det itratic ch Corporatic y 1998, pp. 12-



6

So here’s the key. Fathers want to help their children. And we want to help fa-
thers help their children. We can work this out. But let’s begin with the understand-
ing that the road will be long and difficult. Let’s get moving.

Chairman SHAw. Mr. Levin, would you have an opening state-
ment?

Mr. LEVIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I commend you
for holding this hearing on helping fathers meet their parental obli-
gations to their children. Like you, I believe we can do more to in-
crease the employment and related opportunities of low-income fa-
thers whose children are on welfare.

I also support efforts, very much so, to help promote stable two-
parent families, recognizing at the same time that such a goal may
not always be achievable. But that is only part of the equation. We
should also help noncustodial fathers make a direct and immediate
improvement in the lives of their welfare-dependent children. One
of the best ways to achieve this would be to pass through at least
a portion of the child support payments to families receiving public
assistance.

Although one could argue that this money should be used to re-
coup government welfare costs as it does now, I believe a better
case can be made for sending at least a portion of it to low-income
families. Such a policy would not only immediately improve the
standard of living for many children in poverty, but it would also
make noncustodial fathers feel their efforts to find and keep a job
has made a real difference in their children’s lives. This sense of
responsibility is surely something we want to foster, especially
when it could lead to deeper emotional attachments between fa-
thers and children.

Let me also say that as we discuss new ways, and I applaud you
for exploring them, to help noncustodial fathers meet their obliga-
tions to their children, we should not forget that we already have
several existing programs designed at least in part for that very
purpose. Unfortunately, these same programs have been mentioned
as targets for budget cuts. For example, the welfare-to-work grants,
which the House Budget Committee targeted for elimination, are
being utilized by many States to help noncustodial parents find
and maintain employment.

In fact, my home State of Michigan has instituted a new program
to help noncustodial parents move to self-sufficiency. Using the
welfare-to-work grant moneys, the county friend-of-the-court offices
and the Michigan Jobs Commission are teaming up to provide serv-
ices such as unsubsidized employment, community services, work
experience, subsidized private and public sector employment, on-
the-job training, and postemployment programs to help noncusto-
dial parents. This program provides an opportunity to ensure that
all noncustodial parents have sufficient employment so that they
can make their required child support payments and contribute to
the upbringing of their kids.

I also understand that some of today’s witnesses have developed
programs to help fathers with funding from these welfare-to-work
grants and I look forward to hearing more about these during their


29

volved in Federal agencies who do not have and share the same
opinion that you have.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. JoNES. Thank you.

Chairman SHAW. Mr. English.

Mr. ENGLISH. Mr. Chairman, I have no questions. I just want to
congratulate these men for having the courage to come in and
bring us up to speed on why this fatherhood program is an enor-
mous opportunity for Congress.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman SHAW. Thank you. I will be very brief in my question
because the House goes in at 1 o'clock. I don’t want to get stuck
with a bunch of votes here and keep people waiting beyond the
time, and we have a very good panel following this one.

But I want to ask Mr. Edwards, Mr. Hope, and Mr. Downing,
were all of you from single-parent homes? Did you have a father
living at home? Mr. Edwards, did you have a father living at home?

Mr. EpwarDs. I was raised in a single-parent home. Considering
my biological parents, yes, my mother raised me. I had very little
to no contact with my biological father. However, I had a stepfather
involved. He showed me particular things that I needed to do. He
didn’t live with me, however, he was my mother’s mate. He tried
to show me particular things, particular behaviors and the attitude
that I needed to be successful in modern society.

However, because of not having that in-house, in-home training
day to day, not having that particular discipline which he was not
able to do because he was not my biological father, I still made
negative choices which gave me negative consequences.

Chairman SHaAw. I love that expression, negative choices and
negative consequences. You are what, in psychology?

Mr. Epwarbs. Yes.

Chairman SHaw. I figured that. [Laughter.]

1 like that.

Mr. Hope.

Mr. Hope. No. My father wasn’t actually in the household, but
T had access to him.

hairman SHAW. Did he spend any time with you?

Mr. Hops. Yes and no. It was like first of all, I love my father
dearly despite all his decisions or whatever he’s done. He is still
my father. I have got the utmost respect for him. Things that I
learned from him weren’t actually the same things I learned in the
group. I learned what I could learn from him and I used it to the
best of my ability to use it. Even though sometimes it may not
have been right by some people, it got me by for the short period
of time when I was living that way. Now I have got the right tools
I need to go on further so——

Chairman SHAW. He wasn’t exactly the best role model.

Mr. Hope. Right. But on the same note, maybe I just took what
I did learn from him and the negative stuff that I learned, and I
used it in a positive. He wasn’t the best role model but he was my
father and I respect him dearly.

Chairman SHAW. Mr. Downing, you have already told us that you
were what, one of nine kids or six kids and your mother raised you


65

fathers who were not paying child support for their children who were receiving
AFDC benefits. PFS is supported by an unusual consortium of public and private
funders. In exchange for father’s current and future cooperation with the child sup-
port system, a partnershi of local organizations offered services designed to help
fathers: (1) find more stable and better-paying jobs; (2) assume an important an

responsible parental role; and (3) pay child Support on a consistent basis. PFS's un-
derlying assumption is straightforward: when fathers are supperted in playing an
active role in their children’s lives, and when fathers have gainful employment, they
are more likely to pay child support on consistent basis.

Parent's Fair Share provided a mix of services: employment and training to help
fathers find and hold jobs; peer discussion classes to support and foster responsible
parenting; and dispute resolution services to resolve conflicts that might arise with
the custodial parent. To provide an incentive for fathers to participate in the pro-
gram, local child support systems agreed to temporarily lower or suspend the child
Support payment obligation. The idea was that once a man found a job, his child
support order would be restored to an appropriate level. In essence, the demonstra-
tion tried to strike a bargain with low income fathers: if they cooperated with the
child support system, they would get help in finding a job to meet their obligations.
‘The program began in 1992 with a pilot phase to refine the model and test its oper-
ational feasibility, and then became fully operational in seven sites during the dem-
onstration phase that followed in 1994. (Dayton, OH; Grand Rapids, MI; Jackson-
ville, FL; Los Angeles, CA; Memphis, TN; Springfield, MA; and Trenton, NJ.)

The research on PFS will not only measure whether the program was effective
or not, it will also capture information about the men and their families. There were
over 5,500 men in the demonstration. For most of the sample, we are collecting
quarterly administrative records data that reflects employment patterns and chil
support collections. In addition, we are learning about the relationships between the
fathers and their children (500 men will be asked detailed survey questions) and
we are learning about the mothers of the father’s children (2,400 mothers are being
interviewed to obtain an independent view of changes in fathers’ roles). In addition,
we conducted an in-depth ethnographic study of 50 fathers over a two-year period.
During this time, the interviewer had several conversations with each father to cre-
ate comprehensive life histories.

Over the next few months, MDRC will be releasing two reports: the first—Surviv-
ing is Not Enough: Low-Income Noncustodial Parents’ Perspective on the Ability of
the Parents Fair Share Program to Change their Lives—relies on the life history
interviews to tell the fathers’ personal stories. The second report—Parents’ Fair
Share: Implementation and Initial Impacts—tells two stories: first, it tells the “im-
plementation story” by describing the program, explaining how it operated, and
Identifying these program approaches that worked best, Second, it tell the “early
impact” story whi explains if the program made a net difference in the low-income
men’s employment and child support payments (ie., if more men had higher earn-
ings and more men paid their child support payments than would have done so
without the program). These impacts are considered “early” because they rely solely
on administrative records; they do not include any of the survey data (which is still
being processed); they cover only a part of the full PFS study group; they provide
only a year and a half follow-up information; and they do not cover several key goals
of the program (most importantly, helping fathers become more effective and re-
sponsible parents).

My testimony today draws on these forthcoming reports to address three issues:
1) Who are these fathers?; 2) What have we learned about the role of services in
helping them gain employment, be better fathers, and pay child support?; and 3)
What policy issues should the next generation of programs for low-income fathers
consider? While PFS is arguably the most intensive and comprehensive research ef-
fort ever undertaken about low-income fathers, keep in mind that the men in this
study are not representative of all low-income men. The children of the fathers in
this study have received welfare benefits, and the fathers have already established
paternity and have fallen behind in their child support payments. This is a group
that is seldom included in our national surveys, and the policy community, as a
whole, knows little about them. For policy making purposes, information about this
group of parents should be used in conjunction with other information about low-
income fathers who are included in national surveys.

Wuo ARE THE PFS FATHERS?

The fathers in PFS are diverse in terms of race, age, living arrangements, and
employment experience. They are also a significantly disadvantaged group; most of
them have lived at or near the edge of poverty with little access to public assistance


67

Not surprisingly, these fathers seldom paid what they owed in child support. Only
28 percent of the noncustodial parents made a child support payment through the
child support system in the 3 months prior to entering the study. As a result, many
fathers face staggering child support debts. Nearly one in five fathers owed more
than $8,000 in child support payments. The median amount of arrears for the whole
study group was $2,755. While a portion of the outstanding arrears amounts may
consist of reimbursing Medicaid for the costs associated with child birth (in some
cases, this was retroactively billed to the noncustodial parent), the sheer size of
some outstanding arrears also suggests that the system may be unresponsive to the
challenges fathers face in meeting their payments when they do not have a steady
stream of employment; it appears that orders are seldom adjusted down when fa-
thers do not have earnings.

Despite not paying formal child support, most fathers had regular contact with
their children, When questioned about how frequently they see their youngest child,
nearly half of the fathers reported that they had contact with the child once a week.
While only seven percent of the full sample said they had not seen the child in the
last year, this varied widely across the sites: 28 percent of the men in Trenton and
78 percent of the men in Springfield had not seen their child in the last year. How-
ever, most of the fathers (three-quarters) lived within ten miles of their éhild's resi-

lence.

While the overwhelming majority of fathers were involved in the lives of their
children and described strong feelings of love for them, program staff who worked
with the fathers reported that many did not fully appreciate or understand a fa-
ther's role. For example, staff noted that many fathers defined their role in purely
financial terms. Similarly, some peer support facilitators who facilitated a discussion
on parenting found that ‘the time fathers spent with their children was often not
“productive.” Staff attributed these attitudes and behaviors, in part, to a lack of
positive male parental role models—some men simply did not know how to be sup-
portive parents, at least not by traditional middle class standards.

How Dip PFS RESPOND TO THE NEED FOR JOBS AND PARENTING SERVICES?

The consortium of diverse agencies assembled to deliver PFS services faced a
number of challenges. Employment and training organizations had to work with
very disadvantaged men who were ordered to participate by the courts. Tradition-
ally, these organizations are used to working with volunteers. Further complicating
their task, the program model called on them to emphasize on-the-job training, a
service which the system had sharply curtailed just as PFS was starting up. Finally,
nonprofit organizations dedicated to helping fathers had to commit to the program's
child support collection goals, goals that could conflict with their mission of helping
poor fathers, since failure to pay child support or to actively participate in PF:
could have led to an arrest on a contempt of court bench warrant.

Parenting instruction and support was successfully provided through a group peer
support model where a facilitator met regularly wi s of fathers to discuss
parenting issues. The facilitator followed a “Responsible Fatherhood” curriculum
that included 18 modules covering such topics as the role of fathers in their chil-
dren’s lives, developmentally appropriate behavior for children of different ages,
rights and obligations under the child support system, managing conflict, racism,
and relationships with significant others. Groups generally met two to three times
a week, covering ‘a topic each week.

Peer parental support was generally well received by the noncustodial parents,
providing them an opportunity to relate to a peer group in constructive ways, dis-
cuss troubling personal and societal problems, develop new problem-solving skills,
and have access to an advocate who believed in their potential. In Dayton, the
facilitator developed creative new ways to encourage parents to become involved
with their children by, for example, giving participants assignments such as “make
dinner for your child” or “take your children to the park” and report back to the
group on the experience, and holding special events such as an Easter egg hunt that
involved participants’ families.

‘As reported in the forthcoming ethnographic report, for many PFS fathers, what
was truly special about peer support was that for the first time in a long time they
were listened to and heard. Two PFS enrollees who participated in MDRC’s ethno-
graphic interviews reported:

“I have a lot to thank for ... because he’s instilled in me one thing: I have
no fear of sharing anything that has hurt me. There was years and years
of me walking around not trusting anybody to talk to about it. Now ... I

lon't walk around feeling as though I’m going to have an angina attack or
I feel as if the top of my head is going to explode from blood pressure be-



68

cause I keep holding all this crap in me. It’s got to come out. It helped me
to be a better father, to get better perspective on what I’m suppose to do as
a father, and I appreciated that.”

“I used to avoid my child because when he asked me to buy him Nikes
I did not have the money and I could not face the disappointment. But now,
Tve learned that what my child is most going to remember is the time we
went to the park or fishing and talked about things that were concerning
him. That has given me a whole new outlook on what it means to be a fa-
then”

Peer support served as the focal point for the program around which all of the
other services and activities were built. Participation was high—over 60 percent of
those referred participated, even though the referral was initiated from a court
order for failure to pay child support, not exactly a “warm” supportive referral. The
sessions proved to be powerful and personal. For example, men with daughters had
an opportunity to ask their peers for advice about how to be a father to a girl or
young woman; they shared strategies for becoming involved with the school as a
concerned parent; and they advised each other on how to handle issues in the home
environment provided by the mother of their child, such as drug abuse or lax super-
vision, and they learned together about constructive ways to discipline their chil-
dren. ‘They talked openly, and with emotion, about the limited role their own fathers
had played in their lives, and asked each other what their own children might say
about them as fathers. In our day-to-day lives, there are few forums for fathers to
learn their trade or share their concerns. Our observations of the sessions and our
discussions with the facilitators and with the men themselves revealed that the fa-
thers in PFS found peer support to be a valuable and helpful experience. In the
coming year, we will be analyzing the surveys we conducted with fathers and moth-
ers to see if these add more supporting evidence that the program did improve the
parenting skills of participating fathers.

The additional support that PFS provided through Beer support is not simply a
need of poor fathers. James A. Levine and Edward W. Pitt, directors of The Father-
hood Project, note in their book, “New Expectations: Community Strategies for Re-
sponsible Fatherhood,” that many institutions may systematically, albeit usually un-
knowingly, fail to include fathers in their programmatic activities. For example,
Head Start centers are designed to engage mothers, but not fathers. And school
teachers tend to look to mothers when they call to discuss a child’s school perform-
ance. Many other examples abound, examples we often don’t see until we look for

em.

Getting fathers more and better jobs than they could have gotten on their own
proved difficult; new models and approaches are needed. The design of PFS assumed
that for the program to have a substantial impact on parents’ employment and earn-
ings, sites would have to offer an array of short-term skills training and on-the-job
training to help participants obtain higher-wage or longer-lasting jobs, and job club/
job search services to help those with only limited labor market attachment find em-
ployment. In practice, there was a tension between the pr ’s interest in encour-
aging noncustodial parents to take the time to invest in skill-building activities, and
the realization they could not afford to be out of the labor market for a long time.
In most sites, these pressures led to an emphasis on getting parents into jobs quick-
ly. But for the most part, fathers seemed to get jobs at about the same rate and
of the same type as they had gotten in the past ‘Thus, for this early sample, and
with about 6 months of follow-up for the full sample, the program does not seem
to be increasing program eligibles’ earnings, although two sites did appear to mod-
estly increase employment rates for a brief period of time. Two sites made job devel-
opment an integral part of their program, and as a result were able to emphasize
getti participants tter jobs than they had been able to find on their own, al-
though the long run payoff was unclear.

Participation was relatively high, although not particularly long or intense when
measured by hours of participation, Seventy percent of those parents referred to
PFS participated in_at least one PFS activity, usually parenting instruction and/or
job club. Behind this average was substantial site variation related to differences
in intake methods, service offerings, and the way in which referral back to child
support enforcement was used. Participation rates varied from a high of 82 percent
in Los Angeles to a low of around 60 percent in Memphis. Rates appear to be higher
when: (1) the intake process produced parents who were motivated to participate in
the program; (2) labor market opportunities for those referred to the program were
weaker (because of high unemployment or substantial barriers to employment); and
(3) when PFS activities promptly after referral and participation was closel
monitored. The shift from an emphasis on skill-building activities to job club/ol


26

Mr. Coyne. So, it’s not that money was taken from the Healthy
Start for newborns and deferred to this program. You are doing

oth.

Mr. JonEs. Correct.

Mr. CoyNnr. The Fathers Count Initiative that we are talking
about here today, the legislation, requires that 75 percent of that
money would go to nongovernmental entities. Do you have any con-
cerns about that?

Mr. JONES. No. We are actually a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation
set up under the administration of the Baltimore City Health De-
partment with the blessings of Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke.

Mr. CoyNE. What percentage of your current budget is govern-
mentally sponsored?

Mr. JONES. One hundred percent.

Mr. Coyne. One hundred percent.

Mr. JoNES. Except for some special initiatives that we have been
funded for by the Ford Foundation. I mentioned the Partners for
Fragile Families. The other example of where we could go with this
whole idea of marriage is this concept called TEAM parenting.
What TEAM parenting will be designed to do is to work with young
couples who may be in real fragile relationships who don’t know
how to mediate and negotiate their relationships, and try to sta-
bilize those relationships so that even if they choose not to be to-
gether, the children will always have access to both parents.

Some of the literature suggests that when you work with families
that way, an outcome in the end is the selection of marriage as an
institution.

Mr. Coyne. Thank you.

Chairman SHaw. Mr. Collins.

Mr. COLLINS. Mr. Jones, what did you say your overall budget
figure is? How much money does your budget consist of in 1 year?

Mr. Jones. Are you talking about Healthy Start overall or the
Men’s Services Program?

Mr. CoLtins. You have two different programs?

Mr. JONES. Well the Men’s Services Program is a component of
Baltimore City Healthy Start.

Mr. COLLINS. What is your overall budget?

Mr. JONES. Last year, our last fiscal year, $5 million.

Mr. COLLINS. And you said that is being reduced to $2.5 million?

Mr. Jones. Right. We can get up to $2.5 million this year.

Mr. CoL.ins. That is for both programs?

Mr. Jones. That is for all. Everything that we did last year with
$5 million, we will only be getting up to $2.5 to do that same thing.
I don’t have to tell you what that means in terms of a reduction
in the services.

Mr. Couins. Yes. How much of that $5 million now, the $2.5,
is for the fatherhood program?

Mr. JoNnES. It’s approximately $450,000, comes out a little, I
think a little less than $2,000 per man for 1 year. If you look at
what it takes to incarcerate somebody annually, it is a drop in the
bucket when you talk about being able to work with them outside
of the prison system and prevent them from ever getting there.

Some of our early cost benefit analysis suggests that we can re-
duce incarceration costs. We can also increase child support pay-


78

Having raised four kids myself, I know how strong they can be,
particularly when they get into adolescence. I don’t see how these
moms can do it alone. I can readily see that a one-parent family
is going to have big, big problems raising their kids. I don’t care
what color they are, I don’t care what economic stratum they are
in. There is going to be a problem, that is statistically proven. That
means we have got to do something, everything we can to encour-
age marriage and not discourage it, whether we are talking about
the Tax Code or whether we are talking about legislation such as

is.

Dr. Mincy, you have mentioned that this should not necessarily
be a goal of the legislation. However, and I don’t think I misinter-
preted you. Perhaps I am using some type of a license that doesn’t
clearly point out exactly where you are. But there is one thing that
has come through very clearly in this hearing, and it’s come all the
way through, is that if we make these guys marriageable, women
will want to marry them and they will get married. Whether we
put it in the legislation or not, it is going to happen if we are suc-
cessful in what we are doing.

Mr. Ballard, I have seen some of the accomplishments that you
have had out at the housing project here in the District of Colum-
bia, where you have brought these young people in. I remember the
testimony that they gave to us when we were unveiling this legisla-
tion as to how these things will definitely work. We need to not
only have faith in the human spirit, but we also have to let people
know that we have faith in them. We have to raise that bar of ex-
pectation. That bar of expectation that went all the way down to
the ground with some of these people because we expect nothing
from them as we see them on the street corners. That is wrong. We
have got to help them get their self-esteem up and their self-worth
so that they feel that they are worth something.

Dr. Horn, I heard you express on a television program that you
and I were on together, which has yet to be aired, however you ex-
pressed something which I hadn’t thought anything about, I never
noticed before. But since you have said it I have given it a great
deal of thought. I have also noticed it in watching, particularly in
these situation comedies. It is always the male who is the boob. He
is the dummy. Particularly when you look at your African-
American family situation comedies. This guy is just a guy who if
it weren't for the women making him feel that he did the right
thing or something, he would be absolutely a disaster.

You even brought up “Home Improvement.” You see that. You
can see the guy is constantly the dummy in the whole situation.
I think when we talk about bringing the man back to the nucleus,
whether he is the nucleus or shares the nucleus, it is very impor-
tant that the male’s self-worth as a member of the family and his
self-esteem as an important part of that family has got to be em-
phasized. It’s got to be emphasized.

I am not getting into an equal rights situation. Believe me, I
know better than to get into that thing. I don’t do that at home
either. But I think that he has to feel that he’s vital to the family
image. If he doesn’t, he is going to hang out on the corners and he
is not going to rise beyond our expectation of him.


FOCUS OF THE HEARING:

The hearing will focus on two primary issues. First, based on testimony from
young fathers whose children are on welfare, the Subcommittee hopes to learn first-
hand what barriers these fathers face in attempting to become better parents, to
form two-parent families, and to secure good jobs. Second, the Subcommittee will
hear about programs designed to help fathers overcome these barriers.

DETAILS FOR SUBMISSION OF WRITTEN COMMENTS:

Any person or organization wishing to submit a written statement for the printed
record of the hearing should submit six (6) single-spaced copies of their statement,
along with an IBM compatible 3.5-inch diskette in WordPerfect 5.1 format, with
their name, address, and hearing date noted on a label, by the close of business,
Thursday, August 13, 1998, to ALL. Singleton, Chief of Staff, Committee on Ways
and Means, U.S. House of Representatives, 1102 Longworth House Office Building,
Washington, D.C. 20515. If those filing written statements wish to have their state-
ments distributed to the press and interested public at the hearing, they may de-
liver 200 additional copies for this purpose to the Subcommittee on Human Re-
sources office, room B-317, Rayburn House Office Building, at least one hour before
the hearing begins.

FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS:

Each statement presented for printing to the Committee by a witness, any written statement
or exhibit submitted for the printed record or any written comments in response to a request
for written comments must conform to the guidelines listed below. Any statement or exhibit not
in compliance with these guidelines will not be printed, but will be maintained in the Committee
files for review and use by the Committee.

1. All statements and any accompanying exhibits for printing must be submitted on an IBM
compatible 3.5-inch diskette WordPerfect 5.1 format, typed in single space and may not exceed
a total of 10 pages including attachments. Witnesses are advised that the Committee will rely
on electronic submissions for printing the official hearing record.

2. Copies of whole documents submitted as exhibit material will not be accepted for printing.
Instead, exhibit material should be referenced and quoted or paraphrased. All exhibit material
not meeting these specifications will be maintained in the Committee files for review and use
by the Committee.

3. A witness appearing at a public hearing, or submitting a statement for the record of a pub-
lic hearing, or submitting written comments in response to a published request for comments
by the Committee, must include on his statement or submission a list of all clients, persons,
or organizations on whose behalf the witness appears.

4. A supplemental sheet must accompany each statement listing the name, company, address,
telephone and fax numbers where the witness or the designated representative may be reached.
This supplemental sheet will not be included in the printed record.

The above restrictions and limitations apply only to material being submitted for printing.
Statements and exhibits or supplementary material submitted solely for distribution to the
‘Members, the press, and the public during the course of a public hearing may be submitted in
other forms.

Note: All Committee advisories and news releases are available on the World
Wide Web at “http://www.house.gov/ways__means/”.

The Committee seeks to make its facilities accessible to persons with disabilities.
If you are in need of special accommodations, please call 202-225-1721 or 202-226-
3411 TTD/TTY in advance of the event (four business days notice is requested).
Questions with regard to special accommodation needs in general (including avail-
ability of Committee materials in alternative formats) may be directed to the Com-
mittee as noted above.


ADVISORY

FROM THE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: (202) 225-1025
July 23, 1998
No. HR-17

Shaw Announces Hearing on
Fatherhood and Welfare Reform

Congressman E. Clay Shaw, Jr., (R-FL), Chairman, Subcommittee on Human Re-
sources of the Committee on Ways and Means, today announced that the Sub-
committee will hold a hearing on fatherhood and welfare reform. The hearing will
take place on Thursday, July 30, 1998, in room B-318 of the Rayburn House Office
Building, beginning at 11:00 a.m:

In view of the limited time available to hear witnesses, oral testimony at this
hearing will be taken from invited witnesses only. Witnesses will include fathers
whose children are on welfare, individuals who have designed and conducted pro-
grams for low-income fathers, advocates for fathers, and researchers. Any individual
or organization not scheduled for an oral appearance may submit a written state.
ment for consideration by the Committee and for inclusion in the printed record of

e hearing.

BACKGROUND:

The purpose of this hearing is to examine the social, economic, and legal difficul-
ties faced by unmarried fathers of children on welfare. Numerous studies suggest
that these fathers tend to have lower levels of education and income as well as ele-
vated rates of unemployment and incarceration as compared with other fathers.
These problems make it difficult for them to form two-parent families and to play
a positive role in the rearing of their children. Studies also show that the con-
sequence of father absence is that children, especially boys, are likely to develop the
same problems that afflict their fathers, thus creating an intergenerational cycle of
children being reared in female-headed families.

On March 3, 1998, Chairman Shaw, along with several other Members of the Sub-
committee, introduced H.R. 3314, the “Fathers Count Act of 1998.” The purpose of
HR. 3314 is to prevent this unfortunate cycle of children being reared in fatherless
families by supporting projects that help fathers meet their responsibilities as mari-
tal husbands, parents, and providers. The bill is aimed at promoting marriage
among parents, helping poor and low-income fathers establish positive relationships
with their children and the children’s mothers, promoting responsible parenting,
and increasing family income, The legislation aims to accomplish these goals by pro-
viding a block grant to States to select and fund community-based projects con-
ducted primarily by non-profit and faith-based organizations.

In announeing the hearing, Chairman Shaw stated: “These young men face very
difficult problems, and I want the American people and Members of the Subcommit-
tee to understand how these problems interfere with their ability to become good
husbands and good fathers, If we hope to reverse the negative cycle of fatherless
families, we must begin by understanding the barriers faced by these fathers and
by supporting community-based and faith-based programs that can help them over-
come these barriers. Promoting marriage and two-parent families, and aggressively
helping these men become responsible parents, is the next step in welfare reform.”


15

therhood. A father won’t chump down from a fight or something
like that. You know. But that is not true. There is nothing wrong
with turning a cheek or humbling yourself. That is what the group
basically showed me because of my problem. I had a quick temper.
I would also overreact, then think about it. Now, I will think about
it, think of my decisions, think about my consequences. If the con-
sequence is not bad, then that is my decision.

The group took me, I then made a complete 360-degree turn. Be-
fore I came to the group, I knew I would either be dead or in prison
doing life for some of the dumb stuff I had done. I have been
stabbed, shot at, in a number of fights. The way I think now is not
the same. It’s not about here and now. I have got to go. I have
plans. I know what I want to do. I like construction, home improve-
ment. I am going to continue in that field. I am going to get more
training until I will be the best in it. Not second best. I am going
to be number one in it.

As far as my kids, my love for them never changed. I still love
my kids, but also not just mine, this man’s kids, this man’s kids,
and all the guys back there’s kids. When we come into the group
and we bring our kids, you really wouldn’t know who the father is
because the baby gets passed around or the young boy or young girl
gets passed around so much. You would be like well, is that the
father? No, is that the father? Until they make a statement of who
the father is.

It’s like this group means a lot to me personally. As far as writ-
ten testimony, I don’t have one. I am a testimony of it. Like I said,
I knew if I didn’t walk through the doors back in 1992 and 1993,
I would be dead or incarcerated from growing up on the streets.
Not too many people in business, corporate America are going to
come to where I live at, Harlem and Fremont, and talk to me about
getting my life together. First, back then I would look at you and
think you are crazy, what are you doing down here. I am glad that
Joe Jones and Kyle, Mannie, Eddie, and the other advocates of
Healthy Start didn’t give up on me. I hope that the Subcommittee
will hear our testimonies and don’t give up on them. You all may
not see results tonight, tomorrow or whenever, but changes are
happening. I can go through any area in Baltimore city and people
know me through things that I did through Healthy Start, from the
television. It’s wild. I can use that and pivot off of it and talk to
somebody else who might be going through a similar problem that
I went through when I was younger and I handled it the wrong
way. But look you pick up that gun, you are going to jail, or death,
or that person will come back and get you.

This group means a whole bunch to me. I mean even if they do
lose funding, we are going to still keep it going. It is going to go
on with or without the funding from here, Congress, wherever.
Even if we have got to have our groups in our backyards, we are
still going to go on with our group. This is my family. I love them
dearly. I am sure they feel the same way about me.

Thank you.

Chairman SHAW. Thank you.

Mr. Edwards.


5

grams. We are stimulating the growth of private sector and faith-
based programs.

I admit that there is little evidence to indicate that we know how
to mount effective programs that promote marriage. But that is
why we are having this hearing today. First, I want to hear from
the fathers themselves about how we can promote marriage and
two-parent families. I’ll tell you this—I have no doubt that the fa-
thers who have so generously agreed to come talk with us toda:
are willing to have lots of changes in their lives to help their chil-
dren. I'll bet low-income fathers all over the country feel the same

way.

A here is the key. Fathers want to help their children. We want
to help fathers help their children. We can work this out. But let’s
begin with the understanding that the road we will take will be dif-
ficult. Now it’s time to get moving.

(The opening statement follows:]

ning Statement of Hon. E. Clay Shaw, Jr., a Representative in Congress
Opening from the State of Florida’

I have been looking forward to this hearing for several months because I have
come to believe that fathers are an essential, crucial, irreplaceable part of both low-
income families and of welfare reform.

It would be impossible to exaggerate how much I respect the job single mothers
do. I have even greater respect for them as a result of their very positive and con-
structive response to welfare reform, And I have dedicated a great deal of work dur-
ing my years in Congress to ensuring that low-income mothers who are employed
get plenty of public support through the earned income credit, child care, and medi-
cal assistance—all of which have been expanded in recent, years.

But my vision of American social policy is not only that we figure out ways to
help single mothers support their children. Because of my concern for the economic
viability of the family, and even more important, for the adequate development of
children, I think we must move beyond simply helping mothers work. We must take
the next step by doing everything we can to increase the number of our nation’s
children being raised in two-parent families.

For too long, American social policy has aided and abetted the creation of never-
married, female-headed families. As a result, our nation is now afflicted by a large
number of neighborhoods that have very few two-parent families—in some neighbor-
hoods fewer than 20 percent of the families with children have two parents.

So we have embarked on an experiment in civilization that poses the following
question: Can children—especially boys—be raised by single mothers, in neighbor-
hoods where there are few adult male role models? The answer is this: In 1995,
death by homicide for black teenage males was four times the rate for white teen
males and more than twice as high as it was for black teen males as recently as
1980. Similarly, the homicide rate for white boys nearly doubled over the same pe-
riod.

So we must do something to increase marriage and two-parent families.

Now I am aware that there are many, including some of the most respected mem-
bers of my own party, who think that getting government involved in promoting
marriage is foolish. Perhaps so. But many of these same critics also believe that the
old AFDC program, as well as our tax policy, have contributed to o
single-parent families. So if government policy can contribute to creating single-
parent families, it seems reasonable to conclude that government policy could also
contribute to the demise of single-parent families.

Furthermore, the approach I want to take is to give states money to support
community-based and faith-based organizations to work with these fathers. We are
not funding government programs. We are stimulating the growth of private sector
and faith-based programs.

I admit that there is little evidence to indicate that we know how to mount effec-
tive programs that promote marriage. But that’s why we're having this hearing
today. First, I want to hear from the fathers themselves about how we can promote
marriage and two-parent families. I'll tell you this—I have no doubt that the fathers
who have so graciously agreed to come talk with us today are willing to make lots
of changes in their lives fo help their children. And I'l bet low-income fathers all
over the country feel the same way.



80

2. As a father, it is my responsibility to give gentle guidance to my children.

3. As a father, it is my responsibility to give financial support to my children and
to the mother of my children.

4, As a father, it is my responsibility to demonstrate respect at all times to the
mother of my children.

5. Asa father, it is my responsibility to set a proud example by living within the
law without the taint of drug or alcohol abuse.

The Fatherhood group provides weekly speakers who underscore specific prin-
ciples and assist the men in learning how to incorporate these principles into their

ives.

‘The second element of the program is the outreach and support of the social work-
er. By going “where they are,” he provides a mentoring relationship for these men
who have never known.a positive relationship with their own fathers. The social
worker encourages, leads, and connects young fathers to employment, education,
and other necessary resources. He is there for them in crisis situations and provides
a father’s perspective regarding issues of child development, behavior management,
and relationship concerns.

In the past year, the Young Fathers Program has been recognized in many arenas
as a model for reaching this difficult population. The graduate School of Social Work
at Boston College has utilized this as a placement site for their interns and, we hope
they will continue to do so in the future. The Program Director is currently a mem-
ber of a taskforce of the Governor’s Commission on Father Absence and Family Sup-
port. Program staff have been asked to speak at national conferences in Massachu-
setts, Rhode Island, Arizona, and Washington DC on building community partner-
ships to address the national problem of fragile families and father involvement.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

1, To contact young men who have become, or are about to become, fathers to en-
courage them to become responsibly involved in the lives of their children.

2. To teach young fathers the necessary skills for responsible parenting and re-
spectful, committed relationships with the mothers of their children.

3. To increase opportunities for young fathers to become sufficiently employed in
order to provide basic necessities for their children.

4. To assist young fathers to end their involvement with the legal system, thus
making them more able to be employed and to support their children.

5. To develop a network of supports that will empower young fathers to become
active, contributing members of this community.

ANTICIPATED ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

Children growing up without the positive support of a father are more likely to
live in poverty. Boys who grow up without a father are more likely to be involved
in criminal activity and become incarcerated. The elimination of these factors is the
long-term goal of the Young Fathers Program. In the short term, through the con-
tinued development of comprehensive services, young men will have the opportunity
to increase their confidence, motivation, and’ productivity. Young mothers will be
able to increase their sense of safety and security as they get realistic support from
their children’s fathers, Young fathers will take an active role in providing safe, af-
fordable housing for their children, as well as encouraging them to improve their
own lives, With a decrease in unemployment and criminal activity for this popu-
lation, it is clear that resources can be utilized in other ways to build a stronger
community.

EXPANSION PROPOSAL

Catholic Charities/North is hoping to expand services in this important initiative.
‘To insure the quality of services and to reach a greater number of young families,
we are hoping to increase the outreach and social work staffing. We believe a “team
approach” is extremely effective in outreaching to and supporting these young men.

The outreach worker and social worker are the heart and soul of the program.
‘These individuals will provide resource development, encouragement, and mentor-
ing. They know what is possible and what is available to help young fathers meet
their individual goals. The program director provides supervision and support, as
well as assists in networking with other community agencies serving these families.


83

involvement is central to an agenda for children in order to ensure economic secu-
"ity, emotional well being and opportunity to achieve educational success,

In recent decades, fathers have become increasingly involved in their children’s
lives. But fathers are still much less involved than mothers. It has been estimated
that fathers engage their children only two-fifths as much as mothers do and are
only two-thirds as accessible to their children as are mothers. In 1994, 24% of Amer-
ican children lived in a single mother household, up from 8% in 1960. Most single-
mother households are the result of the high divorce rate in this country, but a
growing number are due to never-married child rearing. In 1903, almost 10% of chil

n in the United States were living with never-married mothers, up from less
than half of a percent in 1960.

This rise in father absence has attracted public concern across the political spec-
trum. For example, according to a recent Gallup poll conducted for the National
Center. on Fathering, 79% of Americans either agree ot strongly agree that “the
most significant family or social problem facing America is the p
the father from the home.”

In reaction to the growing focus on the importance of fathers, we at the Connecti.
cut Commission on Children have researched the effects of father involvement and
the types of programs being implemented to promote positive father involvement.

ysical absence of

RESEARCH

In recent years, research on fathers has geoned. Two general fields of research
have emerged. The first field investigates the benefits of father involvement in
married-parent families. University of Illinois professor of human development Jo-
seph Pleck has differentiated three levels of father involvement: amount of fathers’
engagement with their children, fathers’ accessibility, and fathers’ share of respon-
sibility in taking care of their children. To be beneficial, this involvement must be
positive. The second field looks at differences between children growing up in
married-parent families and single-parent families. These two fields of research in-
dicate that positive father involvement benefits children and parents, while father
absence is detrimental to children and parents.

According to the research, positive father involvement contributes to the cognitive,
social-emotional, and moral development of children from infancy through early
adulthood. In young children, positive father involvement is positively related to
cognitive performance, empathy, self-control, appropriate sex-role behavior, and se-
curity of parental attachment. In school-aged children and adolescents, positive fa-
ther involvement is positively related to academic performance, social competence
and self-esteem, and is negatively related to behavior problems.

For example, a recent report by the U.S. Department of Education indicates that
children fare better in school if their fathers, in addition to their mothers, are in-
volved in their education.

In a study of fathers and their children spanning four generations, Harvard psy-
chologist John Snarey found that fathers’ involvement was predictive of the edu-
cational, social, and occupational success of their children in young adulthood as
well. Furthermore, he found that the best predictor of men’s involvement with their
children is the involvement of their fathers when they were growing up.

Positive father involvement benefits parents in addition to children. Snarey found
that father involvement not only does not impede occupational success, but it is
modestly related to greater occupational success. Other studies also indicate that in-
volvement with one’s children serves as a buffer for work-related stress and can in-
crease productivity. Furthermore, Snarey found that marital success is predicted by
men’s involvement with their children.

Unfortunately, fathers who are divorced or never married often have limited con-
tact with their children. Furthermore, even when non-residential fathers remain in-
volved in their children’s lives, the benefits of this involvement are questionable,
particularly if a father does not have a good relationship with his children’s mother.

Not surprisingly, father absence has been found to be detrimental to children. For
example, in a study utilizing four national data sets, Sara McLanahan and Gary
Sandefur at the University of Wisconsin have found that children of single-mother
families are at modestly greater risk, compared to children whose parents are mar-
ried, for dropping out of school, becoming teen parents, and being detached from the
workforce as young adults. Children of never-married mothers are slightly more at
risk than children of divorce. Additionally, McLanahan and Sandefur found that the
risks experienced by children of single-mothers are not significantly reduced by the
presence of stepfathers.

‘A good deal of the increased risk experienced by children of single-mothers is due
to the loss of their fathers as economic providers. Furthermore, single-mother fami-


21

Mr. LEviIn. Maybe we'll give him a few moments. Why don’t we
talk to that big fellow next to him.

Why don’t you describe the array of services. I don’t think you
really covered that. What is there, what kinds of services?

Mr. Jones. First of all, we have a recruitment team primarily
made up of women who go door to door through a specific target
area, through census tracts, knocking on doors every 6 weeks look-
ing for pregnant women. Once they identify a pregnant woman,
they attempt to enroll her in the program. Once she enrolls, she
is assigned to a case management team that work with pregnant
moms around the pregnancy, whether it’s access to prenatal care,
housing, nutrition. Whatever the issues are, they work with her to
support her, to stabilize what may be an at-risk pregnancy.

mee they get her to reach her comfort level, they do an internal
referral to my program that basically hopefully we get an address,
hopefully a phone number, maybe just a hangout. With that refer-
ral, my staff goes out and looks for these guys. I kind of say we
have a bailbondsman mentality, but we go out to support guys. In
America, I don’t care what color you are, what economic back-
ground you come from, nobody has ever really gone out to reach,
outreach to men. This is a real phenomenon for America. But that
is one of the approaches we employ.

Once we can engage him, we try to get him to come to the group,
see his peers around him, to get him to be comfortable. Then fi-
nally when he enrolls, we do an assessment. Johns Hopkins School
of Hygiene and Public Health is the evaluator for Baltimore City
Healthy Start. In conjunction with them, the policy staff and my-
self and Hopkins developed an assessment. It’s about 25 pages, 26
pages that looks at family formation and in terms of the number
of kids this guy has, by how many different women, his educational
background, criminal justice involvement. We actually put on there
whether or not he has a government-issued ID or not, some of his
attitudes and behaviors around sexually transmitted diseases and
family planning.

From that, a plan is developed, what we call one man’s plan. The
guy sits down with his advocate and a case coordinator. They de-
velop a plan with some preset goals and also some goals that he
says he needs to achieve to be the best man, the best father he can
be. Those goals and that plan are reviewed monthly by the case co-
ordinator and the advocate. When the goals are reached, they are
taken off. New goals are put on. If he doesn’t reach a goal, we come
up with new strategies to help him reach that goal. We have now
redesigned the program so that that plan and his involvement in
the program will have a 1-year cap on it.

ir, Levin. Let me ask you, and thanks from all of us for your
being here. These are stirring accounts. What kinds of services,
just quickly, and my colleagues may have further questions. For
the gentlemen here, for the children perhaps, as well as for the
mothers. What is the array of services?

Mr. JONES. Case management is probably the heart and soul of
the services provided. That would entail dealing with crisis situa-
tions.

Mr. Levin. How many would each, if I might interject, how many
people would each caseworker be working with?


FATHERHOOD AND WELFARE REFORM

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION

JULY 30, 1998

Serial 105-78

Printed for the use of the Committee on Ways and Means

ae

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
58-554 CC WASHINGTON : 1999

For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office
‘Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC 20402

ISBN 0-16-059504-5



84

lies move more frequently and have less community support resources than do mar-
ried parents. These factors affect mothers as well as children. Because of their low-
income level and isolation from community support resources, single-mothers experi-
ence greater amounts of stress than do married mothers,

Fathers also suffer from being separated from their children, In fact, fathers may
gulfer_ more depression and psychological problems as a result of divorce than do
their spouses. Evidence shows that fathers who have never been connected with
their children also suffer adverse psychological consequences such as depression and
low self-esteem. Additionally, Rutgers University sociologist David Popeno argues
that responsible fatherhood helps to socialize men as responsible members of soci-
ety. When men forfeit the responsibility of fatherhood, they run the risk of becoming
marginalized from society.

On a broader scale, father absence is associated with a number of social problems.
A number of theorists and policy makers argue that father absence is a leading
cause of a number of this country’s social ills, Research does indicate that commu-
nities with high levels of father absence tend to also have high rates of poverty,
crime, and young men in prison. From these findings it is tempting to conclude that
father absence contributes to the social ills. However, one must be cautious in inter-
preting these findings because they are correlational and do not imply father ab-
sence causes the other problems with which it is associated.

PROGRAMS

Our research has revealed that there are a large number of growing efforts
throughout the country designed to promote positive father involvement. Efforts to
promote positive father involvement generally have one or more of three aims.

First, efforts can aim to increase positive paternal involvement in families
where the father lives with his children.

‘© Second, efforts can aim to facilitate and support positive connections between
non-residential fathers and their children.

« Third, efforts can aim to prevent father absence.

These aims are not mutually exclusive, and successful efforts should incorporate
all three of them.

In order to effectively promote positive father involvement, it is important to un-
derstand the factors underlying father involvement and the barriers that fathers en-
counter when they try to increase their involvement. Developmental psychologist
Michael Lamb and his colleagues have identified a widely adopted hierarchy of four
factors influencing paternal behavior, all of which must be met in order to success-
fully enhance men’s involvement with their children. These factors include: motiv:
tion, skills and self-confidence, support, and institutional practices. A father’s mo’
vation is influenced by his personality characteristics, his family history (including
srowing up with his own father), his beliefs, and the beliefs of the community to
which he belongs. Once motivated, a father must have confidence in his skills and
ability as an individual and as a man to successfully raise his children. To be suc-
cessfully involved with his children, a father must also be supported by his family
and community. Furthermore, it is imperative that institutions, such as a father’s
workplace and the childcare and educational institutions which his children attend,
do not impede (and hopefully encourage) his involvement with his children. On a
broader institutional scale, society must provide social and economic support for fa-
thers’ involvement. To effectively promote positive father involvement, a repertoire
of programs and legislation should be designed to impact all four of the factors.

variety of programs exist that have at least one of the three aims mentioned
above and are designed to impact multiple factors influencing father involvement.
These programs can be further divided into four general categories.

« The first category consists of programs designed to prevent males from father-
ing children until they are prepared to be good parents.

« The second category consists of pi ims designed to connect fathers with their
children either at birth or after a period of absence.

The third category consists of programs designed to support fathers’ continued
involvement with their children.

The fourth category consists of programs designed to help fathers to be better
economic providers.

Prevent. Programs designed to prevent males from fathering children until they
are prepared to be good parents are usually aimed at adolescents and preadoles-
cents. These programs are offered by a variety of institutions, including schools,
community centers, and religious groups. Most prevention efforts, however, take the
form of curriculum-based programs offered in schools or community centers. These
prevention curricula have typically focused on females, and research indicates that



44

Mr. Mincy. Beginning there and moving quickly. Again, about a
quarter of men who are not paying child support have incomes that
would qualify them for food stamps. To the next table, I am trying
to draw some relationships between those men and women who are
poor and do not receive child support. About 86 percent of them do
not receive child support because they don’t have an order which
is indicative that they are not married.

Skipping to the next table and onto the next, these men and
women are basically about half of them are young, under 30 years
old. Quickly to the next table, about half of them, men who do not
pay and women who do not receive, have less than a high school
diploma which puts them out of the mainstream of the U.S. econ-
omy. Onto the next page, if you sum up the number of Latinos and
African-Americans, 60 percent of them are minorities. Minorities
are a very small portion of the U.S. population as a whole.

What we see here is essentially a marriage market in which
young men and young women who are poorly prepared for the
mainstream are having children out of wedlock. As you were focus-
ing earlier this week on the discovery that minorities are having
a harder time moving off the welfare rolls, I think it is going to be
the case that in order to change welfare as we know it and be suc-
cessful at that, we are going to have to help both the young men
and young women in these communities who are having children
and are not capable of supporting them, let alone qualifying for a
marriage partner.

I just want to close my comments by saying a few other things.
First of all, a major barrier to family formation among low-income
couples with children is child support in the way in which it is tra-
ditionally enforced. First of all, there is no provision any more in
the Federal statute for the pass through. When the father makes
the child support payment to the State, he is unable to say to his
partner that I am making a contribution to my children.

Second, the process of child support as it’s traditionally enforced
encourages very high arrearages at the beginning of the person’s
child support career. The child support can be established retro-
actively to the birth of the child. The Bradley amendment prohibits
the forgiveness of arrearages even if disability, incarceration, or
long-term unemployment are the reasons that the man is unable
to pay his child support. States can order fathers to pay child sup-
port based upon their hypothetical ability to earn with no reference
to their present employment and their present capacity.

Finally, there is no provision in child support to help a man bond
and attach to his child, much like the young men that you saw. In
fact, in order to do visitation in this arena, a person has to have
the capacity to have an attorney. That is something that is beyond
his financial capability.

Quickly, I think the Fatherhood Counts bill will make it very dif-
ficult for the programs and this field to rise to the challenge of
helping fathers support their children. The goal of marriage is
clearly beyond their reach. Something toward which the field is
moving, but for you to attach this as a lead criterion associated
with funding under this program, would really damage the ability
of many of the programs that are making real progress to create


8

ployment, community services, work experience, subsidized private and public sector
employment, on-the;job training and post-employment programs to help non-
custodial parents.

‘This program provides an opportunity to ensure that all non-custodial parents
have sufficient employment so that they can make their required child support pay-
ments and contribute to the upbringing of their children’ T also understand that
some of tadaya witnesses have developed programs to help fathers with funding
from these welfare-to-work grants and I look forward to hearing more about them
during their testimony.

What is clear is that innovative programs such as these would cease to exist if
the welfare torwork program is zeroed out

ermore, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which could also be on the
proverbial cutting board, increases the take home pay of all low-income working
parents, Its important io remember that non-custodial fathers who pay child sup-
rt _are considered tax filers without qualifying children for the Purposes of
Etc: ‘This means Mr. Kaisich’s suggestion to eliminate the EITC for so-called
“childless workers” is clearly at odds with helping fathers support their children.

Finally, 1 want to mention an issue that itapacts millions of fathers and mothers
alike-the availability and affordability of child care. We have to recognize the in-
tense economic pressure in low-income families for both parents to work, especially
since a single minimum wage leaves families well below the poverty line. If we are
goin to help families face dual challenges of earning a living and raising a fam-

iy, then we have to ensure they have access to quality day care. Unfortunately, this
subcommittee has yet to hold even a single hearing on President Clinton’s proposal
to make child care safer, better and more affordable for America’s working families.

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to hearing the testimony of our witnesses today and
helping parents support their children in the near future.

SS

Chairman SHAW. Thank you, Mr. Levin. I think that would be
both quite appropriate for us, just for one moment, to recall and
appreciate what they stood for and what they did for all of us. So,
we will have one moment.

Thank you. We will now call our first panel. We have Joseph T.
Jones, Jr., who is the director of the Men’s Services and Employ-
ment Initiatives at Baltimore Healthy Start Program; Paul Hope,
a participant in the Baltimore Healthy Start Program; Anthony
Edwards, a men’s services counselor and graduate of another re-
sponsible fatherhood program. We have a substitute witness for our
fourth member of this Panel. The witness that is on the program
is ill, but we have Mr. Downing and we have his son, which I am
very pleased to say, came with him. We want both Downing and
son to join us at the witness table.

I thank all of you. Those of you who have submitted a written
statement, we have that statement for the record. Your full state-
ment will be made a part of the record. We invite you to summa-
rize as you see fit.

We will start with you, Mr. Jones.

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH T. JONES, JR., DIRECTOR, MEN’S
SERVICES AND EMPLOYMENT INITIATIVES, BALTIMORE
CITY HEALTHY START PROGRAM

Mr. JoNnES. Good morning, Chairman Shaw and other Members
of the Subcommittee. I want to take this opportunity to thank you
for inviting me to testify and for holding these hearings today tl
have potential major implications for the field of fatherhood.

I would also like to acknowledge some of my colleagues, mentors,
and contributors to my development and to the field. First, I would
like to thank a gentleman who is not here, Ed Pitt, who is with


7

testimony. What is clear is that innovative programs such as these
would cease to exist if the welfare-to-work program is zeroed out.

Furthermore, the earned income tax credit, EITC, which could
also be on the cuttingboard, increases the take-home pay of all low-
income working parents. It is important to remember that non-
custodial fathers who pay child support are considered tax filers
without qualifying children for the purposes of EITC. This means
that the Budget Committee Chairman’s suggestion to eliminate
EITC for so-called childless workers is clearly at odds with helping
fathers support their children.

Finally, I want to mention an issue that impacts millions of fa-
thers and mothers alike, the availability and affordability of child
care. We have to recognize the intense  Rressure on low-income fam-
ilies for both parents to work, especi ly since a single minimum
wage job leaves families well below the Poverty line. If we are
going to help families face the dual challenges of earning a living
and raising a family, then we have to ensure that they have access
to quality daycare. Unfortunately, no Subcommittee has yet to hold

even a single hearing on the President’s proposal to make child
care safer, better, and more affordable for America’s working fami-
ies.

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to hearing the testimony of our
witnesses today on helping parents support their children. Let me
also say, Mr. Chairman, I think you would join me in this, that it
seems appropriate during our discussion of fatherhood, to remem-
ber two devoted fathers who recently lost their lives defending the
Nation’s Capitol. By all accounts, Jacob Chestnut and John Gibson
were dedicated parents. All of us could learn from their example.
Perhaps we should join in a brief moment of silence to honor these
two fallen Capitol policemen.

[The opening statement follows:]

Opening Statement of Hon. Sander Levin, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Michigan

Mr. Chairman, I commend you for holding this hearing on helping fathers meet
their parental obligations to their children. Like you, I believe we can do more to
increase the employment opportunities of low-income fathers whose children are on
welfare. I also support efforts to help promote stable two-parent families, while at
the same time recognizing such a goal is not always possible.

But that is only part of the equation. We should also help non-custodial fathers
make a direct and immediate improvement in the lives of their welfare-dependent
children. One of the best ways to achieve this would be to “pass-through” at least
4 portion of the child support payments to families receiving public assistance.

‘Although one could argue this money should be used to recoup government wel-
fare cost (as it does now), I believe a better case can be made for sending it to low-
income families. Such a policy would not only immediately improve the standard of
living for many children in poverty, but it would also make non-custodial fathers
feel their efforts to find and keep a job has made a real difference in their children's
lives. This sense of responsibility i3 surely something we want to foster, especially
when it could lead to deeper emotional attachments between fathers and children.

Let me also say that as we discuss new ways to help non-custodial fathers meet
their obligations to their children, we should not forget that we already have a few
existing programs designed, at least in part, for that very purpose. Unfortunately,
these same programs have been mentioned as targets for budget cuts.

For example, the welfare-to-work grants, which the House Budget Committee tar-
geted for elimination, are being utilized by many states to help non-custodial par-
ents find and maintain employment. In fact, my home state of Michigan has insti-
tuted a new program to help non-custodial parents move to self-sufficiency. Using
the welfare-to-work grant monies, county Friend of the Court Offices and the Michi-
gan Jobs Commission are teaming up to provide services such as: unsubsidized em-



57

ture of welfare offices from disbursement offices to agencies which focus on placing
mothers in the workforce, child support offices must continue to vigorously enforce
collection of obligations while working with other agencies that help noncustodial
fathers be better parents—both financially and emotionally.

I have spent a great deal of time traveling around the country working with child
support agencies, welfare offices, fatherhood groups, employers and employment and
training service providers to attempt to get these organizations to work together to
provide fathers with a comprehensive group of services which will help them be bet-
ter parents by enabling them to assume legal, financial, child-rearing and emotional
responsibility for their children, Child support offices cannot be expected to provide
all of these services on their own and probably should not, but must be encouraged
to develop strategies and linkages to the services/jobs of these other agencies/organi-
zations to encourage these fathers to be better parents, rather than just collect their
check and end the relationship there. I have spoken at numerous conferences and
written several papers that develop in much more detail the vision | summarize
below. Much of this vision can be implemented at the local level without changes
in Federal law. H.R. 3314 should help accomplish this vision by providing funding
for the services and programs these men need to help them become better fathers,
thereby improving their children’s well-being and increasing paid child support.

This proposed bill will spend $1.9 billion over 5 years and the financing offsets
for the bill have not yet been identified. The Centers support for the bill is contin~
gent upon the bill being paid for—in other words, we stand firmly behind the pay-
as-you-go rules—and any financing mechanism for the bill must not reduce any
other means-tested program.

INCREASING CHILD WELL-BEING AND PAID CHILD SUPPORT

Our efforts should be focused in three areas in order to realize these goals:

* Provision of services to noncustodial fathers that will make them more employ-
able or capable of earning higher wages, such as job readiness activities, job reten-
tion services, on-the-job training, trial employment and by creating jobs for those
who are the hardest to serve, thereby increasing their earnings and child support

aid;
P ¢ Provision of services to noncustodial fathers that will enable them to build
stronger relationships with their children, such as programs to help instill better
parenting skills, mediation, and peer support services, thereby encouraging them to
assume not only financial res; nsibility for their children, but also legal, child-
rearing and emotional responsi! ity: an

« Increasing the effectiveness of paid child support by passing through and dis-
regarding substantial amounts of paid child support and subsidizing those child sup-
port Payments, thereby allowing paid child support to actually improve the well-
being at their children and encouraging them to want to support their children fi-
nancially.

I am convinced that the most promising strategy to assist disadvantaged fathers
in becoming better parents and to improve the well-being of their children is one
which combines the following: a broad array of employment services (plus actual
employment in some cases) and fatherhood programs that are tailored to the par-
ticular needs and strengths of the individual father; strong enforcement of child sup-
port obligations through the enforcement aspects of the child support enforcement
program; and strong economic incentives for noncustodial fathers to pay child sup-
port through policies that ensure that child support paid increases children’s eco-
nomic well-being. H.R. 3314 could provide the needed funding for the first two sets
of services, but not for the last, although the last is equally as important. Local com-
munities should be encouraged to test a variety of ways of implementing this broad
approach.

Increasing Earnings of Noncustodial Fathers and Child Support Paid

First, we should provide services to noncustodial fathers that help increase their
earnings in order to make them able to support their children financially. HLR. 3814
should be used to fund such programs, including workforce development programs,
programs that help fathers overcome the barriers they face to becoming employed,
such as on-the-job training and trial employment, job readiness activities, publicly
funded jobs, and job retention services.

The new welfare law makes important strides in the child support enforcement
arena, strengthening the tools for collecting child support from noncustodial fathers
who have income. However, it does little to help jobless noncustodial fathers enter
the labor force, and consequently, little to increase child support collections from
noncustodial fathers who lack earnings from which to make these payments. This


40

(The prepared statement follows:]

STATEMENT OF CHARLES A. BALLARD, FOUNDER AND CHIEF EXECU-
TIVE OFFICER, INSTITUTE FOR RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD AND
FAMILY REVITALIZATION

MR. CHAIRMAN, MEMBERS OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE. MEMBERS OF THE
HOUSE, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I AM BOTH ‘ASED AND HONORED
TO HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO ADDRESS You THs MORNING ON AN
ISSUE TO WHICH I HAVE DEVOTED ALL OF MY ADULT LIFE—THE RE-IN-
TRODUCTION OF FATHERS INTO THE HEARTS AND LIVES OF THEIR CHIL-
DREN, THEIR FAMILIES, AND THEIR COMMUNITIES. MY NAME IS
CHARLES A. BALLARD AND I AM CONSIDERED BY MANY TO BE THE
FOUNDER OF WHAT IS BEING CALLED THE “MODERN-DAY FATHERHOOD
MOVEMENT IN AMERICA.” | AM ALSO THE FOUNDER AND CHIEF EXECU-
TIVE OFFICER OF THE INSTITUTE FOR RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD AND
FAMILY REVITALIZATION, A NATIONAL, PRIVATE NOT-FOR-PROFIT ORGA-
NIZATION THAT HAS FOR SIXTEEN YEARS SPEARHEADED THE EFFORT TO
BRING TO THE FOREFRONT THE CRITICAL IMPORTANCE AND ROLE OF FA-
THERHOOD IN THE RESTORATION AND PRESERVATION OF THE FAMILY,
AND IN THE REVITALIZATION OF OUR COMMUNITIES.

THE MISSION OF THE INSTITUTE IS SIMPLE—CHANGING FATHERS,
CHANGING FAMILIES, WHICH CHANGES COMMUNITIES. MEN WHO BE-
COME RESPONSIBLE, NURTURING FATHERS AND HUSBANDS TRANSFORM
THEIR LIVES, THE LIVES OF THEIR CHILDREN, THE LIVES OF THEIR FAMI-
LIES, AND THE HEALTH OF THEIR COMMUNITIES. ENDURING CHANGE
STARTS IN A PERSON?S HEART SO THE INSTITUTE SEEKS TO TURN THE
HEARTS OF FATHERS TO THEIR CHILDREN, AND THE HEARTS OF CHIL-
DREN TO THEIR FATHERS. RATHER THAN FOCUSING ON THE EXTERNAL
ENVIRONMENT, WE AT THE INSTITUTE DEAL WITH THE INTERNAL INDI-
Ypuan, HELPING HIM TO IDENTIFY ROOT CAUSES ? AND TO EXPAND THE

E OF HIS POSSIBILITIES. WE LIVE IN THE COMMUNITY; WE REACH

our TO THE COMMUNITY; AND WE BREAK THROUGH THE BARRIERS

‘HAT HAVE CRIPPLED THE COMMUNITY. IN SHORT, WE ARE THE ARCHI-

TECTS OF PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION THAT BRINGS ABOUT COMMU-
NITY RESTORATION.

RECENTLY, THE INSTITUTE WAS ONE OF 49 ORGANIZATIONS SELECTED
BY THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR TO RUN A NATIONAL WELFARE-TO-
WORK, DEMONSTRATION PROGRAM IN SIX CITIES ACROSS THE COUNTRY.
THIS PROGRAM WILL PLACE OVER 500 NON-CUSTODIAL FATHERS AND
MOTHERS INTO OUR NATIONAL WORKFORCE. THESE WORKING CITIZENS
WILL NOW BE CONTRIBUTORS TO THE PUBLIC REVENUE BASE THAT FOR-
MERLY SUBSIDIZED AND SUPPORTED THEM. MORE IMPORTANTLY, IT IS
OVER 500 FAMILIES THAT WILL BE CHANGING THE FACE OF THEIR
HOMES AND THEIR COMMUNITIES.

THE CURRENT DEMAND FOR THE INSTITUTE’S SERVICES FAR EXCEEDS
ITS CAPACITY. OVER 60 CITIES, STATES AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZA-
TIONS HAVE ASKED FOR THE INSTITUTE’S ASSISTANCE IN DESIGNING RE-
SPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD PROGRAMS. OTHER WELFARE-TO-WORK
GRANTEES HAVE ALREADY REQUESTED TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE FROM
THE INSTITUTE OUT OF RECOGNITION OF THE SUCCESS OF ITS AP-
PROACH WHICH STATES “THE MOST POWERFUL JOB CREATION PROGRAM
EVER IS TO REINSTILL IN THE FATHER THE LOVE FOR HIS CHILD.”

THE INSTITUTE’S APPROACH HAS BEEN STUDIED OVER THE YEARS TO
ASSESS ITS EFFECTIVENESS AND OUTCOMES. IN FACT, TWO INDEPEND-
ENT THIRD-PARTY RESEARCH Bl EVALUATIONS HAVE BEEN CONDUCTED
THAT ILLUSTRATE THE IMPACT OF THE INSTITUTE’S RESPONSIBLE FA-
THERHOOD APPROACH. IN 1992, RESEARCHERS AT CASE WESTERN RE:
SERVE UNIVERSITY IN CLEVELAND, OHIO EVALUATED THE INSTITUTE’
PROGRAM AND FOUND THE FOLLOWING:

* 97% OF INTERVIEWED FATHERS SPENT. MORE TIME WITH THEIR CHIL-
DREN AND ARE PROVIDING FINANCIAL SUPPO!

« 96% EXPERIENCED AN IMPROVED RELATIONSHIP WITH THE CHIL-
DREN'S MOTHER;

* 70% OF FATHERS COMPLETED THEIR HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION; AND

* 62% ARE EMPLOYED FULL-TIME, AND 11% ARE EMPLOYED PART-' ‘TIME.

THIS YEAR, THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE COLLEGE OF SOCIAL
WORK RELEASED AN EVALUATION OF THE INSTITUTE’S WORK WITH NON-



81

PROGRAM BENEFIT

The ‘Young Fathers Program is providing a necessary services to a very “hard-to-

ch” population. Since its inception, the program has served nearly 100 men, in-
cluding 38 in the past year. Many other {oune men have been exposed to the prin-
ciples of being a responsible father as the graduates of our program outreach to
their friends and relatives. It is impossible to determine what proportion of the
young parent population may have been effected in some way by this contact.

With the additional funding, our hope is to provide ongoing support to the young
men currently involved in the program as well as to increase annual individual con-
tact to 125 individuals. Well over 90% of pi m participants have been and will
continue to be from low-income and “inner-city” sections of Greater Lynn.

—a————

Statement of Center for Families, School of Consumer and Family Sciences,
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana

PURDUE UNIVERSITY CENTER FOR FAMILIES AND COOPERATIVE EXTENSION SERVICE
COMMUNITIES WORKING TOGETHER WITH FATHERS

“It’s My CHILD Too”

A PARENT EDUCATION PROGRAM FOR YOUNG FATHERS

What does it mean to be a responsible father? What are the roles and responsibil-
ities associated with fatherhood? What role do communities play in supporting
young fathers to increase their commitment and involvement in the lives of thelr
children?

The Center for Families at Purdue University has found supportive parent edu-
cation programs such as It’s My Child Too, disseminated through the Purdue Uni-
versity Cooperative Extension Service, to be a valuable resource for young fathers.

The Center for Families and the Purdue Cooperative Extension Service collabo-
rate in the implementation of this model program for young fathers. The Center for
Families is a catalyst for initiating and integrating outreach, teaching, and research
activities that support families. The Purdue University Cooperative Extension Serv-
ice is an educational organization operating in each of Indiana's 92 counties to maxi
mize the contributions that Purdue, a land grant university, makes to the well-being

of Indiana residents.
The It’s My Child Too program is aimed at young fathers 14-25 years of age in
need of knowledge and skills associated with competent parenting. Most partici-

pants to date have been living in high-risk circumstances due to limited economic
and educational resources. The short-term parent education program (minimum 6
90-minutes sessions) is viewed as a first step in heightening young men’s awareness
of the roles, responsibilities, and skills of fatherhood. The content is tailored to the
needs of f participants. Major content areas include: young father’s roles in the lives
of their children; responding appropriately to children’s developmental needs; coping
with stress; communicatit mother of the child; and responsible decision-
making (sexuality, financial support, and establishment of paternity).

‘The unique county-team design calls for community collaboration to support the
successful implementation of the It’s My Child Too program. Technical assistance
and evaluation provided by Purdue University’s Center for Families further sup-
ports county teams through resource, referral and evaluation feedback.

a


28

community-based fatherhood programs entered into a relationship
with child support, not as an adversarial and not as a collections-
based activity, but in a supportive way. Yes, we need to look at ac-
knowledging paternity and men being responsible financially and
emotionally for their children. But also the potential for child sup-
port to create a funding stream so the fatherhood programs can op-
erate so that we would get away from deadbeat dads. Nigel Van
I believe is here. Nigel will tell you they are not deadbeats, they
are dead broke.

Mr. COLLINS. Yes. That’s often the reason they don’t pay their
child support.

You mentioned the fact that you said to heck with the church
and state relationship that is often looked upon by the Federal
agencies, the Federal Government. Have you presented this pro-
gram to the churches throughout your community for possible
funding so that you would never have that question of separation
of State by having Federal dollars involved in your program?

Mr. Jongs. I think they would embrace it, but I do believe they
need a lot of technical assistance to get there. To run fatherhood
programs where there are standards that can be evaluated, the
field is not there. I mean you have got to be real clear about put-
ting dollars out there and the standards that programs, whether
they are faith based or community based, what standards they ad-

ere to.

I am proud to be a part of the National Practitioners Network
for Fathers and Families that is funded by the Ford Foundation,
the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Charles Mott Foundation, and
one other foundation that escapes me right now. But I am on two
committees. One of the committees is the standards committee,
along with another guy named Jerry Hamilton from Racine, Wis-
consin. The two of us right now are working on developing stand-
ards for the field that will be the standards that programs will
have to adhere to to be a part of the National Practitioners Net-
work. I am sure a lot of public and private funders will look at that
as a gauge on whether or not a program should be funded and
whether or not it is effective.

Mr. COLLINS. But if your program includes Federal dollars, there
is always that question of separation of State.

Mr. JONES. There is always that question. But let me tell you
something. When it gets down to doing the work, you ain’t got time
to worry about a lot of regulations, man, because you are talking
about guys who are coming whose kids are at risk. Yes, you have
to be mindful of it.

Mr. COLLINS. That’s true, but we have an unfortunate situation
where oftentimes some of the people who run the agencies step in
and say they have a difference of opinion and your dollars are cut-
off.

Mr. JONES. Correct.

Mr. CoLLins. I hope you will maintain that train of thought that
you need to have some type of religious activities, attending
church. I would hope that you would confront the churches in your
community about support, either support monetarily or support in
changing the attitude and opinions of a lot of those who are in-


45

an infrastructure to support fatherhood in low-income commu-
nities.

Finally, it is important to move things closer to the State and
local level. However, we have a field that is very young, that has
no place in our infrastructure for supporting low-income children
and families. I think there needs to be some more provision in the
bill to enable the field to build the capacity that it needs to under-
stand what is doing better, to disseminate best practices, and to
network it around the country so that they establish standards and
become better at what they are doing.

I thank you for your indulgence and absolutely for the work that
you are doing.

[The prepared statement follows:]

Statement of Ronald B. Mincy, Senior Program Officer, Human
Development and Reproductive Health, Ford Foundation

Chairman Shaw and members of the Human Resources Subcommittee of the
House Committee on Ways and Means, thank you for this opportunity to comment
on the your efforts to promote fatherhood and in particular on the Fatherhood
Counts ill. My first comment is to express my sincere gratitude for the courage and
wisdom you have displayed in addressing a long-neglected area in U.S. social and
family policy. If you are successful in passing a bill that will provide support for
programs that promote fatherhood, it will be lpfal to the fatherhood field in gen-
eral. However, the same bill can be critical to the success of the effort, you
with the 1996’ welfare reform law. This effort has energized hundreds of practition-
ers all over the United States, who have been working with low-income fathers over
the last two decades, with little support or attention from the federal government.

My testimony is based on what I have learned while: 1) growing up in a poor com-
munity without a father, among many similarly situated young people; 2) becoming
a supportive and loving husband to my wife of over 20 years and father to my two,
now-adult, sons; 3) working as a researcher and policy analyst to understand how
father absence and other family and community problems limit the potential of
young people growing up in poor communities, including several years at the Urban

Institute; 4) leading the ‘Non-custodial Parents’ Issue Group in the Clinton Adminis-
tration’s Welfare Reform Task Force; and 5) working as a member of a dynam
team of researchers, policy analysts, program administrators, and policy makers in-
volved in the Strengthening Fragile Families Initiative, which I have managed for
the almost 5 years at the Ford Foundation. However, I’ speak for myself, and none
of my positions or conclusions necessarily reflects positions or policies of the Ford
Foundation or its trustees.

In the next five minutes I will cover the following four brief points.

1. The three men you met earlier represent part of a large cohort of young, low-
income, non-custodial fathers who are working hard to become full contributors to
the financial, emotional, spiritual, and developmental well-being of their children,
against substantial obstacles.

2. One of their most important obstacles is the traditional child support enforce-
ment system, which thwarts the efforts of these fathers to provide for their children
and to repair relationships with their child(ren)’s mothers. If this system does not
change it will defeat efforts to achieve the goal, which the Congress set out in the
1996 welfare reform law, to encourage the formation and maintenance of two parent
families, at least in poor, minority communities.

3. The Fatherhood Counts bill, as currently framed, may also pose obstacles to
these fathers and the programs that serve them because it may discourage and di-
minish the important intermediate steps between doing nothing for these young fa-
thers and encouraging them to marry.

4. To promote fatherhood in the communities where these fathers and their fami-
lies live, the Fatherhood Counts bill must do more than support individual father-
hood programs. The bill must also help to institutionalize the public-private rela-
tionships between these programs and public agencies that are part of the general
framework we use to support low-income children and families.

RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD GOALS: RESTORATION AND RECLAMATION

In low-income communities, the primary goals of community-based responsible fa-
therhood programs are to restore, reclaim, and make whole the fathers and families


27

ments. We can also help the Census Bureau get an accurate census
count. When you get men out into the mainstream and into em-
ployment now with new hire requirements, with Social Security
numbers and names must be sent to the State to cross reference,
you then can get a more true assessment of who is actually in-
households as opposed to the rough guesstimate we usually get
with most inner-city communities, particularly when women are on
welfare and have their boyfriend, maybe their brother and their
cousins are in the house and will not tell anyone that they exist.

Mr. CoL.ins. Will you reduce the fatherhood program in propor-
tion to the reduction in your funding?

Mr. JONES. We had a budget meeting last week. My program is
one of the programs on the cuttingblock.

Mr. COLLINS. It will not?

Mr. Jones. It was on the cuttingblock.

Mr. COLLINS. OK. Do you have any religious activities in your
program?

rr. JONES. You know when you talk about religion, I am going
to ask the guys when we close this panel, to join me in a brief rit-
ual that we do that takes about 10 seconds. We recently began to
take guys to church on Sundays. I was really caught in between
this Federal church and state stuff. I just decided to heck with it,
whatever happens, happens. The church that we attended is co-
pastored. The mom is actually the pastor. Her son has now taken
over the realm. Here is a Buy who has a master’s in theology who
grew up on the streets of Baltimore, is a recovering addict, and
uses every tool and technique of the street to reach and meet guys
like these guys where they are. That has been our entry into reli-
gion, if you will.

But I would like to twist it a little bit more and talk about spir-
ituality because that is a void that is just clearly missing from a
lot of the lives of the men we provide services to. They want to do
better, man. When you see a guy 18 years old and you see his eyes
have no sparkle, and he is a father and he is responsible for trans-
ferring whatever he has to that child, and he has nothing to trans-
fer, and he has no hope, and he is exposed to guns and drugs, poor
housing, poor education, I think it is practical, the behavior we see
displayed on television as it relates to inner-city America because
that is how they have been trained. They haven’t been trained in
Coppin State, Morehouse State, Harvard. They have been trained
on the streets. That is how they should respond if that is the only
training they have been exposed to.

Mr. CoLLins. That type of training very seldom has anything to
do with a Supreme Being or God.

Mr. Jones. That’s right.

Mr. COLLINS. You mentioned child support, does your program
actually suspend child support obligations while a father is en-
gaged in your program?

Mr. Jones. No. Prior to about 1 year ago, I know Dr. Johnson
is here. This guy over here, his shop is here in Washington. You
should visit ‘L, believe me. This guy took me home one night
and convinced me. It took about 3 hours. I wanted him to leave.
He had taken me home and we were sitting in front of my house
and he is talking about the potential of the benefit to children if


64

Fathers will participate. Our observations of the program in action
suggests that the services make a difference in fathers’ knowledge
about and their approach to parenting.

Second, making these programs effective requires a lot of collabo-
rative work by a range of agencies with different goals: child sup-
port systems, fatherhood programs, and employment and training
agencies. It also takes resources; the funding proposed in H.R. 3314
is critical to the success of these programs. Its links to TANF and
welfare-to-work programs are wise.

Third, more work is needed to develop employment and training
services that would increase low-income fathers’ employment an
earnings. Los Angeles and Memphis emphasize skill building ac-
tivities in conjunction with work. Some related approaches that we
night try include developing new ways to combine work and skill-
building activities and to provide job retention services to help low-
income men hold onto the jobs when they get them. But it is also
true that about a third of the fathers who participated in this
seven-State effort had little or no recent work history. For these fa-
thers, transitional community work experience jobs are needed to
help them build credible work histories.

Fourth and last, in the final analysis, our society still defines the
father’s role as provider. But poor men, even when they work can
seldom meet the 30 percent or more of gross pay demanded of them
by the child support system. When they do meet those demands,
they are often left poor themselves. Unlike middle-class fathers
who often end up better off financially after a divorce, poor fathers
often end up worse off. As a result, they often feel the system is
stacked against them. If their children are on AFDC or now TANF,
they don’t get credit for having paid child support because the pay-
ments go to offset their welfare payments. ild support systems
need to be more responsive to the changing ability of fathers to
pay. The orders need to be rationalized and standardized to reduce
the likelihood that fathers who do try to pay still end up with huge

lebts.

In addition, to address the impoverishment that results when fa-
thers do pay child support, we should give some thought to how we
might take advantage of the EITC, possibly by allowing noncusto-
dial parents who pay what they owe in child support to claim any
unused portion of the earned income tax credit.

In conclusion, fathers do count. Services really can make a dif-
ference. They can enhance involvement with their children, and it
can result in increased child support payments. Thank you.

[The prepared statement follows:]

Statement of Gordon L. Berlin, Senior Vice President, Manpower
onstration Research Corporation, New York, New York

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today at this hearing, on
romising approaches to promote responsible fatherhood. My name is Gordon Ber-
lin. I am a senior vice president at the Manpower Demonstration Research Corpora-
tion (MDRC). MDRC is a non-profit, non-partisan social policy research organization
created in the mid-1970s to examine pI ms designed to address some of the na-
tion’s most pressing social problems. We learned about the needs of fathers from our
experience in developing and evaluating the Parents’ Fair Share Program (PFS), a
program for low-income noncustodial fathers of children growing up in single-parent

ousehoids.

Authorized by the Family Support Act of 1988, Parent’s Fair Share, gave us an
opportunity to test the value of employment and training services for unemployed


4

Chairman SHAw. Good morning. I am very pleased after a very
late night last night, after 1 a.m., to see that we have got this
many of our Members here this morning. We will be getting more
as they come in. I am also very pleased to see the interest in this
most important subject that is shown by the visitors and the Mem-
bers or the people that are going to be testifying this morning be-
fore us. I have been looking forward to this hearing now for several
months because I have come to believe that fathers are an essen-
tial, crucial, irreplaceable part of both low-income families and of
welfare reforms, and indeed of all families.

It would be impossible to exaggerate how much I respect the job
that single mothers do today. I have even greater respect for them
as a result of their very positive and constructive response to wel-
fare reform. I have dedicated a great deal of work during my years
in Congress to ensuring that low-income mothers who are em-
ployed get plenty of public support through the earned income tax
credit, child care and medical assistance, Medicaid assistance, all
of which have been expanded in recent years.

But my vision of America’s social policy is not only that we figure
out ways to help single mothers support their children. Because of
my concern for the economic viability of the family and even more
important, for the adequate development of children, I think we
must move beyond simply helping mothers work. We must take the
next step by doing everything we can do to increase the number of
our Nation’s children being raised in two-parent families.

For too long, American social policy has aided and abetted the
creation of never-married female-headed families. As a result, our
Nation is now afflicted by a large number of neighborhoods that
have very few two-parent families—in some neighborhoods, fewer
than 20 percent of the families with children have two parents liv-
ing at home.

We have embarked on an experiment in civilization that poses
the following question. Can children—especially boys—be raised by
single mothers in neighborhoods where there are few adult male
role models? The answer is this: In 1995, death by homicide by
black teenage males was four times the rate for white teenage
males, and more than twice as high as it was for black teenage
males as recently as 1980. Similarly, the homicide rate for white
boys nearly doubled over the same period. We must do something
to increase marriage and two-parent families.

Now I am aware that there are many, including some of the most
respected Members of my own party, who think that getting gov-
ernment involved in promoting marriage or promoting fatherhood
is foolish. Perhaps so. But many of these same critics also believe
that the old AFDC, Aid to Families With Dependent Children, Pro-
gram, as well as our tax policy, have contributed to the growth of
single-parent families. If government policy can contribute to creat-
ing single-parent families, it seems reasonable to me to conclude a
government policy could also contribute to the demise of the single-
parent family.

Furthermore, the approach I want to take is to give States
money to support community-based and faith-based organizations
to work with these fathers. We are not funding government pro-


18

His mom was pregnant with him. When I really should have been
paying more attention to her, I was out there all the time trying
to make money. As he came in the world, you know, he was here
for a while and me and her weren’t getting along any more, so we
became separated. I stopped doing for my son and her because I
was like if I can’t have her, then I don’t want to have nothing to
do with him either. That is how I was. I was selfish like that.

She also was using drugs. We were both using drugs. I became
my best customer. I was giving it to her. We were using them to-
gether. Sometimes when she didn’t do what I wanted, I would not
give it to her and things like that. As time went on and she became
ill from using drugs, she had to have open heart surgery and
things just weren’t going well. My son was getting ready to go into
a foster home, so I had to decide if I was going to let him go into
a foster home or take responsibility and become a father, which I
really wasn’t ready to do.

As time went on, we went to court and things like that. I decided
that I would go ahead and take care of him. I got him and I really
wasn’t ready yet to be a father, not just yet because I used to like
to hang out and run the streets. I was scared that I was going to
have to stop doing those things. So, I took him. He was 3 years old.
My mom helped me raise him. She did. She helped me out a lot.
She was always there for me, for me and him both. She made sure
I did what I was supposed to have done, to look out for him. I was
still selling drugs. I had also gotten my first job. 1 was working a
job and also still using drugs. The job didn’t last long on the fact
of my using drugs. I could not work and use drugs too. One had
to go, and I chose for the job to go.

T continued taking care of him. Time went on. My drug habit got
worse. His mom was ill, but she hadn’t gotten real ill just yet. She
was out there. She would come and see him and stuff like that. She
was there for him, but not really there. Neither one of us was real-
ly there. We was like, you know, it was the drugs first and then
the child.

As time went on, I lived with my mom still. I had a friend that
was in the Healthy Start Program. I seen what it was doing for
him, so I asked him to help me get into the program. He introduced
me to, I think he introduced me to—I forgot who he introduced me
to. I got into the program. I asked them for some help. I told them
I had a drug problem. I asked them for some help because the:
were trying to offer me a job. I told them I wasn’t ready to work
because I could not pass the drug test. They got me into the Turke
House for 30 days. I stayed there for 30 days. I wanted to leave,
but the only reason I wanted to leave is because I didn’t want them
to waste their money. I really wanted to go back out there and use.

I stayed there for 30 days and cleaned up for 30 days, came back
out. I went down to Healthy Start. As a matter of fact, they came
and picked me up from the Turke House. My niece kept my son
for me. I came back out. I went down, talked to them. They con-
gratulated me for staying for 30 days and gave me a certificate and
everything. I was so in a hurry to get a job from them then after
I cleaned myself up, which I wasn’t really ready to work yet be-
cause I went back out there and used again.


82

Statement of Citizens for Parental Accountability, Chantilly, Virginia

A REAL RX FOR WELFARE REFORM

On Thursday, July 30, 1998, the United States House of Representatives Sub-
committee on Human Resources will hold hearings regarding the role of fatherhood
in the welfare reform effort. IT IS ABOUT TIME THAT MEMBERS OF CON-
GRESS ADDRESS THE “ABSENT PARENT” COMPONENT OF WELFARE RE-
FORM IN A FUNDAMENTAL AND MEANINGFUL WAY.

As a single parent of five and public assistance recipient, I participated in two
sets of welfare reform hearings; (one in July of 1994 and one in February of 1995).
During my testimony, I emphasized the importance of parental accountability for
both parents involved as Congress pursued a “work first” approach to welfare re-
form. Today, I can offer a unique and different perspective on this issue.

After seven years of separation and the receipt of various types of public assist-
ance, my family was reunited in February of 1997. My husband and I have five chil-
Gren, In today’s economy, the adequate provision for and care of children generally
requires the combined effort of both mothers and fathers. Of course there are excep-
tions. However, the majority of typical American citizens living as, single-parents
have difficulty in meeting the needs, both financial and emotional, of their children.
This is not an unkind remark. It is simply a fact. I know. I've been there.

a lot of hard work, discussion, and compromise, my husband returned to our
family, It has not been eaty to rebuild our broken home, He has participated in fo-
rums I hold to inform others about child support availability and enforcement. He
has freely acknowledged the error of what he did in financially abandoning us and
has been diligent in progressing forward at his current employment.

We, together, can share the experience we have had as the only realistic answer
to the welfare dilemma. It takes two parents to make a child. It takes two parents
to appropriately support that child. This message is important and needs to be
shared with any legislator who truly desires to make a difference in this frustrating
area of American social policy.

HOPEFULLY, THESE HEARINGS WILL PROVIDE THE FIRST STEP TO-
WARD AFFIRMATIVELY INCLUDING BOTH PARENTS IN THE WELFARE RE-
FORM PROCESS. TRUE FAMILY SELF-SUFFICIENCY CAN ONLY BE
ACHIEVED WHEN BOTH PARENTS CONTRIBUTE TO THE BEST OF THEIR
INDIVIDUAL ABILITY.

——

CONNECTICUT COMMISSION ON CHILDREN
HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT 06106
duly 30, 1998

RE: The Fathers Count Act, 1998, H.B. 3314

Honorable E. Clay Shaw Jr.
Chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Resources

Good day, Congressman Shaw and honorable members of Congress. The Connecti-
gut Commission on Children is pleased to have this opportunity to submit testimony
to the House Ways and Means Committee, Sub Committee on Human Resources re-
garding House Bill 3314, “The Father Counts Act of 1998.” We submit this testi-
mony to you in the spirit of our statutory charge by the Connecticut General Assem-
bly to “promote public policies that enhance the interest and well being of children
and make recommendations for children annually to the Legislature and to the Gov-
ernor.” To that end, we support the efforts of this Committee to fund programs that
promote and enhance positive father involvement with their children.

BACKGROUND

Unfortunately, in the past, three decades, there has been a dramatic rise in the
number of children living in households without fathers. In a 1997 report published
by the Connecticut Association for Human Services, 149,702 families in Connecticut
were single-parent families—that translates into 20% of all families in Connecticut.
Research on promoting positive father involvement suggests that encouraging fa-
thers to provide for their children economically and to be regularly and positively
connected to them, whether or not the father lives in the home, helps children to
do better emotionally and academically and lessens the incidence of behavioral pro

lems, whether or not the father lives in the home. Thus, encouraging positive father



55

ing him with an income level that is only 38 percent of the poverty
line, while providing the custodial family with no additional in-
come. Is it realistic to expect low-income fathers to pay these child
support orders when their children do not even benefit from them?
The chart also shows that the resulting increases in the custodial
family’s income if child support is completely disregarded increases
by from 6 to 20 percentage points.

Another way this could accomplished is by subsidizing child
support payments. As you know, the Tax Code contains a number
of provisions that benefit families, such as personal exemptions,
child tax credits, and EITC. These provisions, however, only benefit
families with earnings. Because some custodial families have little
or no earnings, they are unable to take full advantage. These un-
used credits could be tallied and used to subsidize and incentivize
the child support that should be paid by the noncustodial parents.
For example, $2,000 of unused child tax benefits from the custodial
mother could be providing additional payment of $1 for every $1
that the noncustodial parent pays.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I would note that there are several
programs already in existence that would support the goals of H.R.
3314. Specifically, the welfare-to-work legislation you passed last
year, title 20, the EITC for childless workers and T. , could all

used to currently promote these goals. Accordingly, cuts to these
programs for the purposes of offsetting the cost of this bill or any
other legislation severely undermines the goals you have set forth
for this bill.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I want to commend you for displaying
leadership in resisting reductions to the TANF block grant. I know
the efforts you have made. Moneys from that block grant can be
used to support the goals of the block grant proposed here. I there-
fore urge you to continue fighting cuts in the TANF block grant
and to continue calling attention to the importance of fathers and
the need to assist noncustodial parents as well as custodial parents
in meeting their parental obligations.

[The prepared statement and attachment follow:]

Statement of Wendell Primus, Director of Income Security, Center on
Budget and Policy Priorities

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee on Human Resources:

Thank you for the opportunity to testify on the subject of “promising approaches
to promote fatherhood” and specifically the proposed “Fathers Count Act of 1998”
(H.R. 3314). As the Director of Income Security at the Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities—a nonpartisan, nonprofit policy organization that conducts research and
analysis on a variety of issues affecting low- and moderate-income families—I would
like to congratulate you on calling attention to the importance of fathers and the
need to assist noncustodial parents in meeting their parental obligations.

The Center supports the thrust of this hearing and the goals that it seeks to at-
tain—“‘helping poor and low-income fathers establish positive relationships with
their children and the children’s mothers, promoting responsible parenting and in-
creasing family income”—and the message it sends that government policy should
acknowledge the importance of fathers assuming legal, financial, child-rearing and
emotional responsibility for their children, We support H.R. 3314 to the extent that
it supports these goals. However, 1 have two serious concerns with the bill as cur-
rently drafted that are critical to address if the bill is to achieve the goals laid out
in this hearing.

Firs, the income and demographic targeting requirements of the bill do not target
the resources provided narrowly enough on those non-custodial parents who could
most benefit—and whose children could most benefit— from participating in training
and parenting programs. As currently drafted, H.R. 3314 requires states to use


79

This has been a great hearing. I think we have had some great
insight here and learned quite a bit. I would like to see this legisla-
tion move ahead. I will be filing it again. I think the calendar is
very much against us now, but we will hope that in the next Con-
gress this will become law.

Yes, Mr. Collins.

Mr. COLLINS. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to comment to Mr.
Ballard that sir, I make the final decision in our household. It’s
“Yes, ma’am,” or “No, ma’am.” (Laughter.]

Chairman SHaw. The hearing is adjourned.

(Whereupon, at 1:22 p.m., the hearing was adjourned, subject to
the call of the Chair.]

[Submissions for the record follow:]

Statement of Catholic Charities/North, Lynn, Massachusetts

Catholic Charities/North, a community service site of Catholic Charities of the
Archdiocese of Boston, Inc., wishes to include the following program description in
the proceedings of the hearing on Fatherhood and Welfare Reform. We believe that
we have developed an effective program to meet the challenges of this population.
It is clear that national attention must be drawn to such services. A recent PBS
documentary “Fatherhood USA” featured our program and others like it which are
attempting to make a difference in the lives of these young men. We are grateful
for such interest and are willing to assist in this effort in any way.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Catholic Charities/North is seeking support in sustaining and expanding the
Young Fathers Program. Americans have come to recognize that fathers’ involve-
ment. in the development of their children is extremely important. Nearly 25% of
our children, or more than 19 million, live in families with no father. The long term
effects of this trend are very sobering: diminished opportunity for learning how to
be a partner in a stable two parent family, economic loss, fewer educational opportu-
nities, and increasingly limited access to employment, family adequately, Research
also demonstrates that girls from single parent families have a threefold greater
risk of bearing children as unwed teenagers. Catholic Charities has recognized the
vital importance of services to young fathers, many of whom would otherwise be
caught up in a web of criminal activity, domestic violence, and economic disarray.
We are very clear that, if we are serious about creating a safe place in which to
raise a child, we have to make a father’s contribution fo his child, both in terms
of finances and parental nurturing, an absolute priority.

The target population of the Young Fathers Program is men who have become fa-
thers, often unintentionally, who are undereducated, underemployed, and living in
disadvantaged neighborhoods. Referrals have been made through other Catholic
Charities! programs which primarily serve young mothers and their children, Fa-
thers are identified, and aggressive outreach efforts are made to engage them in
services. Specific programs generating referrals are: Second Chance School for preg-
nant teens, co-sponsored by the Lynn School Department; the Amity Transitional
Housing Program for young mothers, partially supported by the Lynn Housing Au-
thority and a past recipient of Block Grant funds; the Educational and Parenting
Skills Center, a GED program primarily serving young mothers; and the Young Par-
ents Outreach program, supported by the Department of Social Services, Strong re-
lationships have been developed with many other agencies including the depart-
ments of Probation and Social Services and other individual providers.

In the past year, 38 fathers, primarily under the age of 25, have been assisted
directly in stabilizing their lives. Many more have contacted our agency and have
been exposed to the principles upon which the program in based. A majority of those
helped directly have been able to sustain employment, with few cases of criminal
recidivism.. We have seen tremendous improvement in the living conditions of these
young fathers and in thelr abilities to demonstrate appropriate parenting and rela-
tionship skills.

‘The program, currently staffed only by a half-time outreach social worker, con-
tains two vital’ elements, First is the weekly Fatherhood group during which the
young men are taught the basics of being responsible fathers in an atmosphere of
Positive encouragement. The focus is on five specific principles:

1. Asa father, it is my responsibility to give affection for my children,


85

teen pregnancy prevention efforts may be less effective for males. Recently, Planned
Parenthood, in conjunction with the Children’s Aid Society and Philliber Research,
outlined a conceptual framework for successful male focused teen-pregnancy preven
tion programs. The authors conclude that successful programs should be long-term
and intensive, provide close relationships with caring adults, elicit the support of
peers and parents, and focus on skills building and activity-based lessons.

Connect. Programs to promote fathers’ positive involvement with their children
must first address the most basic connection between father and child. The man’s
acknowledgment that he is the child's father. This establishment of paternity has
clear financial benefits for children. When paternity is established, children are eli-

ible for social security and health care benefits (if their fathers are insured), and

thers are also legally responsible to contribute financial support to their children.
But paternity establishment has psychological benefits as well. It encourages fa-
thers to develop a sense of responsibility towards their children, and even if fathers
do not get involved in their children’s upbringing, the children still grow up with
a better sense of their heritage and identity.

‘The best time to establish paternity is at birth, Programs based upon this premise
have significantly increased the rates of paternity establishment by encouragin|
unwed fathers to establish paternity while in hospitals’ maternity wards. Even i
fathers do not establish paternity at birth, programs can encourage them to do so
at a later date.

‘Support. After a father forms a connection with his child, he must feel supported
by his family and his community in order to remained involved. A number of re-
source centers and support groups have been established to help provide such sup-
port to residential and non-residential fathers. These services typically offer services
Such as legal aid and advocacy for fathers, parenting classes, counseling for couples,
and jo ing.

Jeb Training, Since father’s absence is most prevalent in impoverished families
most of these programs focus on helping low income fathers develop employment
skills and help him stay psychologically involved with his child, A Key component
of promoting the involvement of low-income fathers is to overcome economic barriers
te positive father involvement by helping them find employment. In addition, states
should evaluate welfare reform policies to make sure that they promote a positive
fatherhood agenda.

In summary, effective efforts to promote positive father involvement intervene on
multiple levels to break down the personal, cultural, political and societal barriers
that many men encounter as they try to increase their involvement in their chil
dren’s lives. In Connecticut, and throughout the country, a growing number of pro-
grams are helping to prevent unprepared young men from becoming fathers, connect
absent fathers with their families, support fathers’ continued positive involvement
with their children and become better economic providers.

The Commission on Children strongly supports H.R. $314 because, by providing
these programs with much needed support, the Fathers Count Act will help Con-
necticut parents who are struggling to balance the responsibilities of work and fam-
ily, and it will help bolster their children’s success in school and as future parents.

The Commission also supports federal policies (the Personal Responsibility and
Work Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRA) and the Balanced Budget Act of 1997(BBA))
that have given states the opportunity to promote responsible fatherhood in several
ways. Under the new welfare law, states can increase family income by: 1) providing
employment and training to fathers; 2) increase child support collections; and 3) in
crease the distribution of child support collected on behalf of families receiving Tem-
porary Assistance to, Needy families (TANF). Funds allocated to the States from

-B. 8314 should be linked to and coordinated with State welfare reform initiatives
to ensure maximization of funds and to eliminate duplicative programs.

‘The Commission on Children has made available to you copies of our recent study
on “The Importance of Fatherhood: Promising Efforts to Promote Positive Father In-
volvement” written by Christopher C. Henrich, M.S. Psychology, Yale University.
Thank you for your consideration of this testimony.

oO



62

Disregarding Child Support Significantly Increases the Income of Custodial Families in the State of Florida

Earnings Effective Tax Rate. Income as a
‘on Child Support Percentage of Poverty
Child Sup-
port Order Noncusto-
N Pita Custodial Family Parent
custodial | Noneusto- TM std 2
+7 dial custodial Current -——_——
Family Parent | Parent's Law Proposal Current
Earnings: aw
Current Proposal and Pro-
0] — 10,000 17a] 100.0" 30.0 56.0 655
2,500] 7,500 267| — 100.0* 30.0 TT 82.5 53.4
5,000} 5,000 33.2] 100.0 30.0 875 96.3 32.4
0| — 15,000 30.7 85.2 30.0 612 80.7 87.1
3,750} 11,250 37.1 91.0 30.0 825| 1019 59.9
7,500] 7,500 444] 100.0% 300] 1016] 119.4 315
0| — 20,000 295 732 30.0 68.1 76] 115.0
5,000] 15,000 35.5 719 30.0 965] 115.9 78.1
10,000] 10,000 30.8 69.3 30.0| 122.1 134.1 514
0| 25,000 285 65.7 30.0 147 94.2 143.5
5,000] 20,000 33.2 683 300] 1036] 123.0 106.1
10,000| 15,000 36.2 588 447| 1209] 1358 12

Note: Calculations use 1998 Florida child support and TANF parameters and federal tax and food stamp pa-
rameters, but assume the $500 child tax credit is fully phased in (even though this will not be the case until
1999) for a family with two children and assume that the full child support order is paid. The poverty thresh-
‘old for the custodial family is the threshold for a family of 3, or $13,086 in 1998 and the poverty threshold for
the noneustodial parent is the poverty threshold for one person, or $8,259 in 1998. The proposal is a complete
pass-through of paid child support to the custodial family and a complete disregard of paid child support for
the Rurpoee of calculating T. benefits,
* These families receive TANF under current law.

—————

Chairman SHaw. Thank you. I hope your praise doesn’t get me
in trouble.
Dr. Berlin.

STATEMENT OF GORDON L. BERLIN, SENIOR VICE
PRESIDENT, MANPOWER DEMONSTRATION RESEARCH
CORPORATION, NEW YORK, NEW YORK

Mr. BERLIN. Thank you for the opportunity to comment on prom-
ising approaches to promote fatherhood. My remarks today about
the needs of fathers are drawn from MDRC’s experience in develop-
ing and evaluating the Parents’ Fair Share Demonstration Project,
arguably the most comprehensive research and demonstration
project in existence that involves unemployed noncustodial fathers.

Authorized by the Family Support Act of 1988 and operating in
seven States, Parents’ Fair Share’s underlying assumption is that
when fathers are supported and playing an active role in their chil-
dren’s lives, and when fathers have gainful employment, they are
more likely to pay child support on a consistent basis. Delivered by
a partnership of local child support, fatherhood, and employment
training organizations, the program offers employment and train-
ing to help fathers find and hold jobs, peer discussion classes to
support and foster responsible parenting, and dispute resolution
services to resolve conflicts that might arise with the custodial par-
ent. In addition, child support systems agreed to suspend or lower
orders while fathers participated in the program.

Iam going to draw upon two forthcoming reports on this project
that will be released in the next month or so to answer or address


35

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR A PRO-FATHER PUBLIC POLICY

First, our culture needs to send a more compelling message to men as to the criti-
cal role they play in the lives of their children. Currently, fathers are generally seen
as “nice to have around” and as a source of economic support, but are not under-
stood as contributing much that is particularly unique or irreplaceable to the well-
being of their children. To counter this rather limited view of the importance of fa-
thers, public policy must communicate the critical role fathers play—as nurturers,
as disciplinarians, as teachers, and as role models—in the healthy development of
their children. One way to do this is through the funding of public education cam-
paigns.

‘Over the past several years, the National Fatherhood Initiative has developed and
implemented a series of public education campaigns designed to highlight the im-
portance of fathers to the well-being of children, families and communities. Working
in conjunction with the Ad Council, we developed and distributed a national public
service announcement (PSA) campaign to raise awareness that fathers make unique
and irreplaceable contributions to the lives of their children, and that collectively
we need to do more to encourage and support men to be good and responsible fa-
thers. To date, this PSA campaign has garnered in excess of $100 million in donated
broadcasting time.

We have also developed, in partnership with Radio America, a series of radio
PSAs. These fatherhood PSAs feature a mix of celebrities and experts to remind fa-
thers how important it is for them to spend time with their children. Among those
who appear in this series are General Colin Powell (Ret.), Vice President Al Gore,
former HUD Secretary Jack Kemp, U.S. Senators Dan Coats and Bill Bradley, U.S.
Representatives J.C. Watts and Steve Largent, and Penn State football coach Joe
Paterno. We have also developed a state-wide public education campaign promoting
responsible fatherhood in partnership with the Virginia Department of Health.

For those who may believe that PSA campaigns do not have much of an effect,
an independent evaluation of the public education campaign we developed for the
state of Virginia suggests otherwise. This evaluation, conducted by researchers at
the University of Virginia, found (1) nearly 1 of every 3 adult Virginians could recall
having seen the PSAs; (2) 40,000 fathers reported they were spending more time
with their children as a result of seeing the ads; (3) and 100,000 non-fathers re-
ported reaching out to support or encourage a father in their community.

Second, a pro-father public policy must also be a pro-marriage policy. All available
evidence suggests that the most effective pathway to involved, committed and re-
sponsible fatherhood is marriage. Research consistently documents that unmarried
fathers, whether through divorce or out-of-wedlock fathering, tend over time to be-
come disconnected, both financially and psychologically, from their children. Forty
percent of children in father absent homes have not seen their father in at least
a year. Of the remaining 60 percent, only one in five sleeps even one night per
month in the father’s home. Overall, only one in six sees their father an average
of once or more per week.!® More than half of all children who don’t live with their
fathers have never even been in their father’s home.!7

Unwed fathers are particularly unlikely to stay connected to their children over
time. Whereas 57 percent of unwed fathers are visiting their child at least once per
week during the first two years of their child’s life, by the time their child reaches
Tvs years of age, that percentage drops to less than 25 percent.!® Indeed, approxi-
nately 75 percent of men who are not living with their children at the time of their
birth never subsequently live with them.19

Even when unwed fathers are cohabitating with the mother at the time of their
child’s birth, they are very unlikely to stay involved in their children's lives over
the long term. Although a quarter of non-marital births occur to cohabitating cou-
ples, only four out of ten cohabitating unwed fathers ever go on to marry the mother
of their children, and those that do are more likely to eventually divorce than men

16Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr., and Christine Winquist Nord, “Parenting Apart: Patterns of
Gail Rearing After Marital Disruption,” Journal of Marriage and the Family, (November 1985):

27 Frank Furstenberg and Andrew Cherlin, Divided Families: What Happens to Children When
Parents Part (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991).

18Robert Lerman and Theodora Ooms, Young Unwed Fathers: Changing Roles and Emerging
Policies (Philadelphia, PA: Temple, 1993): 45.

1 Tbid.


15

agreement from the very beginning on that. It took a long time and
it took a change in parties and majority to do that.

We have been at this a few short years, so there is no one saying
that the world is fixed. But clearly the dire predictions that were
made about what welfare reform would do have not come true. In
contrast, it has been the other way. The number of people working
have exceeded even the predictions, the positive effects at least ini-
tially. A lot of that is partly a result of a strong economy. Let’s
hope that recession doesn’t come very soon because clearly we'll
have a lot of strain and problems as we always do and as we did
under the old system. That wasn’t necessarily a perfect system in
a recession either.

But I think the idea is true. How do we improve the lives of fam-
ilies and particularly the lives of children in those families. I look
forward to working with you on that.

Mr. PRIMUS. Just one final comment. I said in testimony that
just as we tried to transfer welfare offices, I think that’s what has
got to go on with child support. I guess I firmly believe, and some
of my friends say well, the child support offices aren’t even doing
a good enough job collecting child support, how can they take on
anything more. But a lot of the reason, as you stated, is they don’t
have a job. We need to help them get that job and earn higher
wages, help them be a better dad. The child support office by link-
ing I think, I mean you may have thought I was a detractor or crit-
ic of welfare reform. I am now saying that is exactly what has to
happen to the child support office, which is a very critical part here
in the fathers’ lives.

Chairman SHAW. Before we put this one to rest, and I think it
is a very small part of this particular hearing, but you have
brought us something with regard to child support that we should
take a close look at. I assure you we will.

Mr. Collins.

Mr. COLLINS. Just briefly, Mr. Chairman. You know there is an
old saying, a hit dog hollers.

Chairman SHAW. Say that again.

Mr. CoLLins. A hit dog hollers. [Laughter.]

Mr. Camp, you were right. The intent of the welfare reform bill
was to encourage work and promote people to work and get off of
welfare rolls. I understand there were even a few people who quit
their jobs because the welfare reform bill was signed. I don’t know
who those people were or who any one particular person was.

Chairman SHAW. They are not in here.

Mr. COLLINS. I think it was that dog we heard from a while ago.

Mr. Ballard, it was very interesting to listen to your analysis of
how a lot of this came about in a lot of our cities and communities
where people just kind of moved from communities, and a lot of ac-
tivities began to take place in those communities. You said that the
churches alone can’t do this. I am not convinced the churches alone
can do it either. But I do think that all of our youngsters, and we
know this, all of our youngsters at some time or another are ex-
posed to education. We as a government prohibit even the hanging
of the 10 most sensible laws that were ever scribed. We prohibit
those from being within any public building. I think that is where


36

who father children within marriage.?° Remarriage, or, in cases of an unwed father,
marriage to someone other than the child’s mother, makes it especially unlikely that
a non-custodial father will remain in contact with his children.?!

The inescapable conclusion is this: if we want to increase the proportion of chil-
dren growing up with involved and committed fathers, we will have to increase the
number of children living with their married fathers. Unmarried men, and espe-
dally unwed fathers, are simply unlikely to stay in contact with their children over
the long term.

By emphasizing the need to increase the number of children living with married
dads, I do not mean to imply that divorced or unwed fathers should be tossed over-
board. Children need their fathers. The fact that their father does not reside in the
same household does not lessen that need. But in working with divorced and never-
married fathers, we should not shy away from the ideal of married fatherhood. To
do otherwise sends an ambiguous message to the next generation of fathers. For
their future children’s sakes, we need to be clearer that men should wait until they
are married before fathering children, and once married, they should do everything
they can to ensure their marriage stays strong and vital.

ne way to strengthen marriage, especially within low-income communities, is to
expand participation in welfare-to-work employment programs to include the broad-
er population of low-income males—not only as a means to increase their own life
prospects, but also as a means to increase their marriageability. Research has found
{hat the availability of a suitable potential husband, primarily defined as being em-
ployed and not in ail or prion, Rad a eater eflect on matriage and nonmerital
fertility than did AFDC benefit levels.2? is literature indicates clearly that if men
are employed, they are better potential marital partners.

In expanding employment services to low-income males, government should be
careful not to condition receipt of services upon having fathered a child out-of-
wedlock "To do so may only setve to introduce perverse incentives for men to father
children out-of-wedlock, in much the same way 1at AFDC provided perverse incen-
tives for women to bear children out-of-wedlock. The cultural and public policy mes-
sage must be this: we stand ready to assist low-income males who play by the rules
and wait to have children until after they are married.

Third, public policy needs to do more to support the growing number of commu-
nity-based organizations interested in implementing local fatherhood programs. At
the founding of the National Fatherhood Initiative just three years ago, we could
barely find & hundred community-based fatherhood programs. Today, that number
has swelled to well over two thousand. Nearly everywhere one turns in every part
of the country, there seems to be a new interest in implementing fatherhood out-
reach, support, and skill building programs.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that the fatherhood field is still quite frag-
ile. Again and again, we hear from practitioners of the need to build greater capac:
ity within the emerging fatherhood movement. Building capacity requires additional
resourees, Additional resources means money.

While many private foundations today talk a good talk about the need to reach
out to and support fathers, far too few actually provide any resources to do so. Pub-
lic funding for fatherhood promotion, support and skill building programs is prac-
tically non-existent. Consequently, most fatherhood programs today exist on Shoe
string budgets. Some on no budgets at all. Without additional resources, the nascent
fatherhood movement is likely to fail.

In addition, we need more and betier evaluations of existing fatherhood programs.
The truth is we don’t know what works best and for whom. While there are many
promising approaches, no approach has yet been proven, using generally accepted
Scientific evaluation methods, to yield its intended effects, especially in the long-
term. Whatever government decides to do in terms of fatherhood promotion, it must
algo commit to providing adequate resources to determine the effectiveness of those
efforts.

Fourth, while supporting fathers, we can not forget the importance of supporting
children growing up in father absent households. The fact is that nearly 4 out of

2 Moore, Kristin A., “Nonmarital Childbearing in the United States.” In: U.S. Department of
Heaith and Human Services, “Report to Congress on Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing,” DHHS Pub.
no, (PHS) 95-1257, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995): vil.

21Linda S. Stephens, “Will Johnny See Daddy This Week?” Journal of Family Issues 17
(1996): 466-494.

William J Darity, Jr. and Samuel L. Myers, “Family Structure and the Marginalization
of Black Men: Policy Implications.” In M. Belinda Tucker and Claudia Mitchell-Kernan, eds. The
Decline in Marriage Among African-Americans. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1995, pp.
263-321; see also Randall Stokes and Albert Chevan, “Female-Headed Families: Social and Eco-
nomic Context of Racial Differences,” Journal of Urban Affairs, 18, 1996, pp. 245-268.



51

the possibility of continued family formation still exists in communities where mar-
riage is rare, unwed births are common, and young men and women are poorly pre-
pared to enter the mainstream. The bad news is that the longer we delay the inter-
ventions needed to help them, the longer are the odds that both the father and the
mother will be able to nurture and provide for their children.” The parents and chil-
dren are vulnerable, their relationships are immature, and the process of family for-
mation through which they are going is precarious. For these reasons, T eall such
parents and their children, fragile families.

Unfortunately, this potential for family formation is invisible to most Americans.
As a result, we structure income and family supports for these fragile families as
if they have the same needs and barriers as middle-aged, middle income, divorced
men and women. It is not surprising that these supports create obstacles for these
families.

Wuy TRADITIONAL CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT IMPEDES FRAGILE FAMILY
FORMATION

Some of the most important obstacles arise in the traditional child support en-
forcement system. This system is designed to deal with non-custodial parents for
whom the family formation process is complete, because their marriages have ended
in divorce or separation.® It works well because questions of paternity establishment
are moot for these fathers and they have the resources to pay child support, though
not willingness to do so. However, traditional child support enforcement is often an
impediment to the process of family formation in fragile families, because, in several
ways, it discourages the involvement of low-income, non-custodial fathers in the
lives of their children (Sorenson and Turner, passim): >

1. Until the 1996 welfare law, the system allowed the state to keep all but $50
of the father’s child support payment to offset welfare costs. Under the new law,
most states keep the entire child support payment, passing none of it along to custo-
dial mothers and their children.

2, Most states allow child support orders to be established retroactively to the
birth of a child, even when no action to establish paternity is taken until long after
the unwed birth.

3. The Bradley Amendment prohibits the courts from forgiving or reducing child
support arrears, even when disability, incarceration, or long periods of unemploy-
ment prevented fathers from keeping their child support payments current.

4, States can order non-custodial fathers to pay child support based on their po-
tential earning ability even when they do not have a job at the time the order is
established.

5. Child support guidelines tend to be regressive, requiring low-income, non-
custodial fathers to pay a larger share of their income toward child support than
higher-income fathers.

. Except for the financial obligation, the child support system has little to say
about non-custodial fathers’ involvement in their children’s lives.

7. The child support enforcement system does not provide a way for low-income,
non-custodial fathers to establish or enforce their rights to visitation their children.

In 1996, forty percent of Hispanic children and nearly seventy 70 of black children
were bor out of wedlock. Hispanic and black men are over-represented among the”
low-skilled men whose wages and employment prospect have declined the most, de-
spite a booming economy. Given the Barriers to family formation, which child Sup-
port poses for low-skilled men and their families, I have long wondered how Con-
gress expected to achieve the fourth goal of the welfare reform law. T have waited
for an opportunity to ask members of Congress: How would you encourage young
disadvantaged men and women in these communities to form and maintain two-
parent families? In the interim, I have worked, along with grantees of the Ford

‘oundation’s Strengthening Fragile Families Initiative, to build capacity in the field
of community-based responsible fatherhood programs. These programs show low-
income, unwed fathers:

7Mary Achatz and Crystal A. MacAllum, “Young Unwed Fathers: Report from the Field,” Pub-
lioPrivate Ventures, Philadelphia 1994.

® Ronald B. Mincy and Hillard Pouncy “Paternalism, Child Support Enforcement, and Fragile
Families” in The New Paternalism, ed. Lawrence M. Mead (Washington, DC: Brookings Institu-
tion Press, ).

® Elaine Sorenson and Mark Turner. “Barriers in Child Support Policy That Discourage Non-
custodial Fathers’ Involvement in the Lives of Their Children: A Literature Review,” paper pre-

red for the System Barriers Roundtable, sponsored by the National Center on Fathers and

ramilies, Philadelphia, PA, May 29, 1996.


24

Mr, McCrery. How many men are in the State-supported pro-
gram?

Mr. Jongs. I’m not real sure of their numbers.

Mr. McCrery. Do you work with the State program? Is there
any relationship?

ir. JONES. Yes. We are currently involved in the project called
Partners for Fragile Families. That is an initiative funded by the
Ford Foundation. What it will do, it will allow the Young Fathers
Responsible Fathers Program and the Healthy Start Men’s Services
Program to work in conjunction. This is a situation I would not
have been in about 1% to 2 years ago, to partner with the State
Child Support Administration. The grant actually goes to the child
support.
The two basic points about | this initiative, it requires that
community-based fatherhood ams help Child Support estab-
lish paternity among men w. pen to be fathers who have
never established paternity, ut who don’t have arrearages, be-
cause the guys who have arrearages, it’s kind of hard to manage
that situation at this point in time. But this new entry for
community-based programs and State Child Support, is to help
Child Support meet its Federal mandate to increase incrementally
paternity over several years until 1991. But also for Child Support
to create a funding stream so that community-based programs can
provide services to fathers, including education and training.

Mr. McCrery. Do you happen to know how the Glendening ad-
ministration finances its State program?

Mr. JONES. I think they use discretionary dollars.

Mr. McCrery. Do you know if any of those dollars come from
their block grant for TANF?

Mr. JONES. No. I am not sure of the mechanism of their funding
stream.

Mr. McCrery. Mr. Hope, why did you join this program? What
compelled you? What made you want this program? I know now
you are sold on it and you like it and it’s a swell place to be.

Mr. Hope. I guess when I got stabbed in 1991 in a street fight,
and like a light clicked, I can’t go on living like this, you know.
Then I found out my kid’s mother was pregnant. I really can’t go
on like this. What really got me hooked is when I came to the
group and I was carrying a firearm. Joe Jones, I don’t know if he
saw it or I don’t know how, he asked me about it. I told him, yes,
I have one. He took it from me. He was like, you'll get it back at
the end of the group. I am sitting in the group and I am listening
to everybody. When are the police going to come through the door.
He never came. At the end of the group, he gave it back. He said
he was going to get me to the point where I can come to group or
walk the streets without having a firearm on me.

Now, I don’t carry a firearm. As a matter of fact, I don’t have
a firearm no more. I don’t worry about problems as much as I used
to. There is no problem that I can’t talk out, talk my way out of
it. I don’t have to ball my fingers up and make a fist no more.

Mr. McCrery. How did you hear about this program?

Mr. Hope. One day me and my kid’s mother was walking down
the street. A lady named Ms. Bush, she used to work there, and
she asked was she pregnant. She said yes. At the time, it was


54

mothers in the work force, child support offices must continue to
enforce the collection of child support, but also assist fathers to
move into the work force, to help them be better fathers and have
more interaction with their children. In that way, assist noncusto-
dial fathers in being better parents, both financially and emotion-
ally, and then I think the promotion of marriage will come auto-
matically.

Child support offices cannot be expected to provide all of these
services on their own, and probably should not. But they must be
encouraged to develop strategies and linkages to the services of
other agencies. Much of this vision can be implemented at the local
level without any changes in Federal law. The center’s support for
the bill is contingent upon the bill being paid for. Any financing for
the bill must not reduce any other means-tested program.

I am convinced that the most promising strategy to assist dis-
advantaged fathers in becoming better parents is one that com-
bines the following. Fatherhood programs that provide mediation,
parenting, and peer support services and a broad array of employ-
ment services, plus maybe actual employment in some cases to
overcome the disadvantages of substance abuse, that are tailored
to the particular needs and strengths of the individual father, these
fathers are diverse, and enforced through the tools of the child sup-
port enforcement program, and reinforced by a set of strong eco-
nomic incentives it assure that when child support is actually
paid it increases child well-being. H.R. 3314 provides needed fund-
ing for the first two sets of services, but not for the last. All of
these ingredients must be present, I believe, for the strategy to
work.

I would like to describe one concrete addition to the bill that I
would urge you to consider. In this era of no unfunded mandates
and devolution, I recognize that States cannot just be ordered to
pass through a certain amount of child support. I would urge you
to legislate the following offer to States. They do not have to turn
over their child support collections to the Federal Government if
they pass through a significant portion of the child support col-
lected on behalf of noncustodial parents. The States woul given
the simple choice, pay the family or pay the Federal Government.
This would cost both the Federal and State governments, but
would greatly benefit low-income families, and also change the dy-
namics of the relationship between custodial and noncustodial par-
ents.

For example, as you see on the chart, in Florida where there is
no pass through of child support under current law, the tax rate
on extremely low-income families is 100 percent. In most contexts
both liberals and especially conservatives rebel against 100 percent
tax rates. As you can also see, a noncustodial father in Florida
should be Paying a very large proportion of his earnings in child
support, leaving him with very little income.

I went back and double checked these numbers this morning be-
cause I could not quite believe them myself. Maybe in the real
world they don’t happen. But at least on paper and reading all of
the fine print, this father here represented in that sixth line, when
he is earning only $7,500, the mother has child care expenses, he
is expected to pay 44 percent of his earnings in child support, leav-


63

three issues. Who are these fathers, what have we learned about
what works in terms of services that might help them gain employ-
ment, be better fathers and pay child support, and what policy
issues should the next generation of programs for low-income fa-
thers consider?

Who are the fathers in this program? They are a significantly
disadvantaged group. Most of them live at or near the edge of pov-
erty with little access to employment or public assistance pro-
grams. About half do not have a high school diploma or GED. In
terms of employment, about half of them work at low-wage jobs
intermittently while the other half have been unemployed for long
periods of time.

As you know, as a result of changes in the labor market over the
last 20 years or so, employment prospects for poorly educated men
have deteriorated precipitously through no fault of their own. With-
out regular work, this group of fathers seldom feel adequate as par-
ents. While most saw their children frequently and tried to be in-
volved in their lives, without income, they often had difficulty. Not
surprisingly, without jobs, they seldom paid what they owed in
child support. Many face staggering debts. Twenty percent of the
sample owed some $8,000 in child support payments, in part be-
cause those arrears continue to build even when fathers are unem-

ployed.

Despite their involvement with their children, we found that the
PFS fathers they often lacked basic understanding of how to be a
parent. What was age-appropriate behavior, what forms of dis-
cipline were appropriate, what kinds of activities to engage in with
their children.

What have we learned about the effectiveness of the services this
program offered? The first lesson was that parenting instruction
and support was successfully provided through a group peer sup-
port model where a facilitator met regularly with groups of fathers
to discuss parenting issues. It was feasible to operate this program
component. The fathers came. They participated at significant lev-
els. You have heard from the previous panel testimonials about
What these kinds of opportunities to engage fathers can mean to
them.

The second lesson, getting fathers more and better jobs than they
could have gotten on their own, proved very difficult. We have a
lot more work to do in that area. We did get fathers jobs, but we
often found we were getting them the same kinds of jobs they got
previously. Two of the sites were more promising. We have a long
way to go in the followup period. We are hoping that some trends
will emerge there that will give us some additional lessons about
effective employment and training strategies.

The third lesson: despite the absence of employment and earn-
ings impacts during the early followup period covered in our forth-
coming reports, the package of PFS services did lead to increases
in child support payments. The program had a payoff beyond the
help it gave fathers in making them better parents.

Four policy recommendations emerge from these lessons and this
experience. First, there is a tremendous need for services to help
low-income fathers learn about and be supported in the active roles
they already play as fathers. It is feasible to deliver these services.




43

AMERICAN COMMUNITIES, WE MUST REVIVE THE NUCLEUS OF THE FAM-
ILY—THE FATHER. WE MUST SUPPORT HIS PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION
AND ENCOURAGE THE PRINCIPLES OF PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY, FAM-
ILY RESPONSIBILITY, AND COMMUNITY RESPONSIBILITY. WE MUST EN-
SURE THAT FATHERS HAVE MAXIMUM OPPORTUNITIES TO BE THE BEST
FATHERS THEY CAN BE, AND TO PROVIDE THE BEST QUALITY OF LIFE
THEY ARE ABLE FOR THEIR FAMILIES. ONLY THEN WILL AMERICA EXPE-
RIENCE THE RESURGENCE OF SAFE, STRONG, VIABLE AND CONTRIBUT-
ING COMMUNITIES WITHOUT REGARD TO GEOGRAPHICS, ECONOMICS OR

ETHNICITIES.

[ANK YOU, MR. CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THIS COMMITTEE, FOR
AFFIRMING YOUR COMMITMENT TO THIS PRINCIPLE IN THE FATHERS
COUNT LEGISLATION.

———

Chairman SHAW. Thank you, Mr. Ballard.
Dr. Mincy.

STATEMENT OF RONALD B. MINCY, SENIOR PROGRAM
OFFICER, HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND REPRODUCTIVE
HEALTH, FORD FOUNDATION

Mr. Mincy. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, and Members of the
Subcommittee. I thank you for this opportunity to comment on the
work that you are doing and on the Fatherhood Counts bill.

My first comment is to genuinely thank you for addressing an
issue that is long neglected in U.S. social welfare policy. Like the
effort that you began in the 1996 welfare reform bill, this bill could
bolster efforts of hundreds of practitioners all over the United
States who, to my knowledge, are the only ones who are paying at-
tention to your goal of encouraging the formation and maintenance
of two-parent families, at least in low-income communities.

A common theme among these practitioners is the notion of re-
storing the hearts of fathers to their children. This is a phrase
taken from Malachi, which also speaks to the need to heal and
bring wholeness to communities. In a very fundamental way, that
is what the work of Joe Jones and his colleagues from around the
United States is doing.

I want to make four brief comments. First of all, the panel that
you heard from this morning is a representation of a very large co-

ort of young men throughout the United States who are not able
to support their own children, let alone to successfully float a mar-
riage proposal. If you could turn quickly to the tables at the end
of my testimony, I want to emphasize that this cohort is very large.
It consists of about 3 million men, 2 million of whom are not pay-
ing—have incomes so low that they are not paying their child sup-

port.
Second, these men look very much like women who are having
difficulty escaping from welfare. About one-quarter of the men who
uld be paying child support are not able to do so. If you just
turn quickly through the tables, you will also see that most women
who are poor and who do not receive child support are women——
Chairman SHAw. Help us out on what chart you are looking at.
We're just kind of flipping through it trying to figure out where you
are.
Mr. Mincy. I’m sorry. I am turning to this huge circle.
Chairman SHaw. Thank you.


4l

CUSTODIAL FATHERS IN GOVERNOR SUNDQUIST’S FAMILIES FIRST PRO-
GRAM. THE REPORT DOCUMENTED THAT E-FOURTHS OF THE MEN
PARTICIPATING IN THE INSTITUTE’S NASHVILLE PROGRAM—ACTUALLY
71.3%—ARE FINANCIALLY SUPPORTING THEIR CHILDREN, EITHER VOLUN-
TARILY OR DUE TO COURT ORDER. THE REPORT WENT ON TO Ni , AND
I QUOTE, “MANY CHANGES IN FAMILIES WHO HAVE WORKED WITH THE
INSTITUTE WERE REPORTED BY FOCUS-GROUP AND INTERVIEW PARTICI.
PANTS. SOME NEGATIVE BEHAVIORS THAT STOPPED INCLUDED DRUG
AND ALCOHOL USE AND ACTS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND CHILD
ABUSE...FATHERS REPORTED BECOMING INVOLVED WITH THEIR CHIL-
DREN AND SPEAKING AND SPENDING MORE TIME WITH THEIR FAMILIES,
WHEN BEFORE THEY HAD NOT.”

‘WHEN I BEGAN THIS WORK MORE THAN 20 YEARS AGO IN CLEVELAND,
‘THE PROBLEMS FACING AMERICA’S COMMUNITIES HAD A SIMILAR FACE
TO THAT OF TODAY—DRUG USE AND ABUSE; HIGH RATES OF HOMICIDE
AND CRIMINAL ACTIVITY; JUVENILE DELINQUENCY; LACK OF ADEQUATE
CHILD CARE; INADEQUATE EDUCATION: INSTITUTIONS AND RE-
SOURCES; OUT-OF-WED! ‘K BIRTHS AND TEENAGE PREGNANCIES. BUT
THE FACE OF OUR URBAN COMMUNITIES TODAY HAVE MORE DEEPLY
ETCHED LINES OF ANGUISH AND PAIN THAN EVER BEFORE. IN THE
HEIGHT OF OUR NATION’S ECONOMIC RESURGENCE, OUR INNER CITIES
ARE PLAGUED WITH:

« INCREASING RATES OF ADULT MALE INCARCERATION—515% OF
AMERICA’S ADULT MALE PRISON POPULATION IS AFRICAN AMERICAN—
AND MANY ARE FATHERS—YET, AFRICAN-AMERICAN MALES MAKE UP
LESS THAN 8% OF OUR COUNTRY’S TOTAL POPULATION;

¢ ACCELERATED RATES OF JUVENILE MALE INVOLVEMENT IN THE
CRIMINAL JUSTIC SYSTEM—65% OF YOUNG, AFRICAN-AMERICAN MALES,
MANY OF THEM TEENAGE FATHERS, ARE INVOLVED IN AMERICA’S JUVE-
NILE JUSTICE SYSTEM;

* RECORD NUMBERS OF CHILDREN IN THE FOSTER CARE SYSTEM—68%
OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN CHILDREN FROM BIRTH TO AGE 18 ARE IN-
VOLVED IN AMERICA’S FOSTER CARE SYSTEM.

MORE SOBERING IS THE RELENTLESS ASSAULT ON THE LIVES OF OUR
INNER-CITY RESIDENTS WHO ARE DYING IN RECORD NUMBERS:

« AIDS IS THE NUMBER ONE CAUSE OF DEATH FOR AFRICAN-AMERI-
CANS INGE 25 TO 44 AGE GROUP, WHICH ARE THE PRIME AGES FOR

* HOMICIDE IS THE NUMBER ONE CAUSE OF DEATH FOR AFRICAN
AMERICAN MALES IN THE 15 TO 25 AGE GROUP;

* SUICIDE IS THE NUMBER ONE CAUSE OF DEATH FOR AFRICAN-AMER-
ICAN CHILDREN IN THE 9 TO 15 AGE GROUP—A 114% INCREASE NATION-
WIDE SINCE 1980!!; AND.

* DEATHS OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN MALES DUE TO CANCER, CARDIO-
VASCULAR DISEASE, TUBERCULOSIS, AND HYPERTENSION ARE INCREAS-
ING FOR ALL AGE GROUPS IN AMERICA. °

CLEARLY, WE HAVE A MORAL IMPERATIVE TO ACT DECISIVELY TO SAVE
FAMILIES AND THE SOUL OF THIS GREAT NATION, AS RESIDENTS OF THE
INNER-CITY SUFFER THIS UNRELENTING ASSAULT ON THEIR SAFETY,
‘HEIR HEALTH, THEIR HOMES, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, THEIR FAMI-
LIES, THEY FIND LITTLE SOLACE IN WHAT HAS HISTORICALLY UNDER-
GIRDED IMPOVERISHED AND SEGREGATED COMMUNITIES—THE PRES-
ENCE OF STRONG, UNIFIED AND NURTURING FAMILIES AND NEIGHBOR-
HOODS. THESE CORNERSTONES OF AMERICA’S CENTRAL-CITY COMMU-
NITIES ARE FLEEING TO THE SUBURBS, LEAVING IN THEIR WAKE THOSE
‘WHO ARE LEAST ABLE TO HOLD OFF THE DECAY AND ENCROACHING DE-
STRUCTION OF THE COMMUNITY.

THERE IS AN UNPRECEDENTED FLIGHT FROM THE INNER CITY BY
MIDDLE-CLASS AFRICAN AMERICANS—AND BY IMMIGRANTS—WHO,
HERETOFORE, NOT ONLY HAVE BEEN THE FOUNDATION OF AMERICA’S
INNER-CITY COMMUNITIES, BUT ALSO ITS NUCLEUS. WITHOUT THE NU-
CLEUS, AN ORGANISM, OR THIS CASE, A COMMUNITY, DIES. THIS IS PRE-

INTO THE COMMUNITY TO LIVE AND WORK AND MODEL LOVING AND
SUPPORTIVE RELATIONSHIPS. WE BRING HUSBANDS AND WIVES WHO
HAVE SUCCESSFULLY TRANSCENDED LIVES CHARACTERIZED BY HOPE-


66

or employment programs, Approximately 80 percent of the overall study group are
African American or Hispanic, but there is great variation across the seven sites;
for example, a fifth of eligibles in Springfield, MA and Grand Rapids, MI are white.
Nearly two-thirds of the sample have never been married, and nearly 70 percent
had been arrested on a charge unrelated to child support problems after they had
turned 16 years of age (a non-juvenile offense). Many of the men rely on family and
friends to make ends meet or for a place to stay. Even though the men’s average
age is a0 years, more than 60 percent live with a relative, usually their parents (45
percent).

In terms of employment history, it is possible to loosely divide the PFS population
into two distinct groups: one that had a recent history of employment (about 47 per-
cent reported being employed at some point in the three months prior to entering
the program), and another group that was characterized by repeated spells of unem-
ployment (43 percent earned $500 or less in the nine months prior to entering the
program; half of the sample had not held any job in the three months prior to enter-
ing the program).

Even though the first group had a history of employment, it was a history of being
in relatively low wage jobs. This group wanted help finding higher-paying jobs. In
contrast, the second group had tenuous connections to the mainstream labor market
and their recent employment histories consisted of lengthy spells of unemployment
and frequent changes from one low-wage job to the next. This group needed help
finding stable jobs.

While the employment goals of PFS were straightforward (the program aimed to
get fathers employed in better and more stable jobs than they had been able to ob-
tain on their own), the program and the fathers faced several challenges in meetin;
these goals. The challenges included “supply-side” issues like high arrest rates an
low education levels and “demand-side” Challenges like the shrinking labor market
demand for low-skilled men, especially those living in inner-city areas.

the supply-side, nearly 70 percent of the men reported being arrested and, not
surprisingly, those with criminal records had more difficulty with getting hired.
Nearly half the study group did not have a high school diploma or GED, and only
2 percent had taken any college courses. The vast majority (more than four in five)
had no involvement with an education or training program in the last year. Not sur-
prisingly, their overall employment rate is low too: 47 percent were employed during
the three months prior to the program —compared to an 87 percent employment
rate for all men and a 78 percent rate for Black men between the ages of 20 and
54 (March, 1995.)

On the demand-side, changes in the labor market exacerbated these barriers. Em-
ployment prospects for less educated men have deteriorated over the last 25 years.
Depending on the inflation adjustment measure used, between 1973 and 1996, real
weekly earnings of male high school graduates may have fallen by as much as one-
fifth, while school dropouts earnings fell by one-fourth or more. The decline in job
prospects has been especially severe for young black men; earnings for black school
dropouts age 20 to 29 are down by a third or more. The consequences of these de-
clines for families and for family formation are profound. In 1973, the average 25
year-old, high-school dropout with a full-time job earned enough to support a family
of three above the poverty line. Today, that is no longer true.

Broad statistical portraits fail to capture the nuances in individuals’ lives. We
were able to capture the experience of fifty PFS fathers and the life histories that
emerged led us to believe that the broad statistical portrait does not exaggerate the
barriers they face. The life history field research, conducted by Dr. Earl Johnson,
found that the noncustodial parents in this group exhibited substantial job mobility,
often moving from low-wage job to low-wage job with intermittent periods of unem-
ployment. One reason for this instability was that many of the jobs they obtained
were temporary, as one man explained:

“0. the times I was working, I never had a job over six months ... I wasn’t
fired. It was always temporary.”

And without regular work, fathers seldom felt adequate as parents. Many of the
men’s perceptions of themselves as good fathers were tied to their ability to provide
for their children. As a result, some men voluntarily fell out of contact with their
children when they lacked money to provide support. As one father related:

“It’s hard when you are trying to be a father, right, and then you turn
around saying you're the best father in the world to your kids, which you're
trying to bg, and then all of a sudden you can't even buy a pack of Pampers,
‘you know.


11

Almost every man who enters the program says, “I need assist-
ance with getting a job.” I mentioned to you that 80 percent of the
men in enrollment, and currently we have 200 again, are unem-
ployed. We have integrated a grant we have received from the U.S.
Department of Housing and ‘Orban Development that is dedicated
to do lead abatement in the community, where we give awards to
contractors to do the work, and then the property owners must
rerent or sell the property to families that have children 6 years
of age and under. We have carved out a portion of that grant to
develop a job training program where fathers who go through all
the hurdles we ask them to go through, obtain the ID, change of
mindset, commit themselves to volunteering in the community, and
then are able to get involved in this HUD-funded project.

Paul Hope, who you will hear from, is one of the graduates from
that program, who is now gainfully employed with unsubsidized
employment. Recently, we implemented the STRIVE jobs readiness
program. This nationally recognized program was featured on the

‘BS news show “60 Minutes.” It uses a no-nonsense tough love ap-
proach in preparing hard-to-employ residents from America’s poor-
est communities for employment and placement into real jobs. One
of the key elements in TRIVE is this commitment to follow grad-
uates for 2 years following placement. Graduates maintain an 80-
percent, jee retention rate during that period. Fathers from the pro-
gram who are not referred to the -funded project and display
the kind of negative attitudes that would not allow them to get a
job or keep a job are referred to STRIVE.

Finally, I would like to comment on the Fathers Count Initiative.
As I understand it, the project is designed to achieve two goals.
First, the projects must encourage marriage and better parenting
by fathers. Second, the project must feature activities to help fa-
thers obtain employment or increase their skills so that they can
qualify for higher paying jobs. I believe that the program’s goals of
encouraging better parenting by fathers and the emphasis on em-
ployment activities to increase skills for access to higher paying
jobs are widely supported.

The requirement that a potential grantee must encourage mar-
riage is a very very sticky point for the fathers who fit the profile
I described and who are represented here today. There is however,
a possible solution, a common ground, if you will. That common
ground I call the principles of marriage. Many of the communities
where poor fathers reside, and I would like to go back to something
you mentioned very early on, Mr. Chairman. If I can quote you cor-
rectly, you said single moms raising children where there are few
adult male role models, is really a formula for disaster. I would
submit to you that in many of the communities where poor fathers
reside, there are very few households where the model of marriage
exists, another formula for disaster.

Fatherhood programs could, for example, add an addendum to
existing curricula. This is something that we plan to do in Balti-
more with our curriculum, the Fathers’ Journal, is add sessions on
the principles of marriage in developing discussion groups around
what marriage actually is. When you look at these guys when they
first come in the door, they are not marriage material. If your
daughter came home, and if my daughter came home and told me


53

states have little incentive to build networks and capacity in a field that operates
across the country. This network and capacity building is important so that the field
may develop standards for its own members, disseminate best practice, and educate
the public about the value of the services it provides. Moreover, the block-grant ap-
proach leaves the field of community based responsible fatherhood with little infra-
structure at the federal level, where the rest of the nation’s family support policies
are developed and maintained. As a result, the field will be unable to integrate fa-
therhood development into the national framework for supporting low-income chil-
dren and families. Because the national framework features strong institutional ad-
vocates for low-income mothers and children, it is imperative that fatherhood have
a voice at the national level,
The field of responsible fatherhood is more than twenty years old, but because
public and private support has been small and episodic, no program in the country
as been rigorously evaluated for its effects on child well-being and family forma-
tion. Such an evaluation would be premature, because the field is still learning how
to define and measure its impact on these important outcomes. Thus, Fatherhood
Counts should begin to provide the resources needed to help institutionalize the
field. Practitioners, like Joe Jones should know who in the Department of Health
and Human Services will continue to be responsible for fatherhood development
services, Currently, I believe that responsibility should be housed somewhere in the
Administration for Children and Families. I also believe that such an office should
have a close working relationship with the Federal Office of Child Support Enforce-
ment, which, under the leadership of Commissioner David Grey Ross, has been our
greatest ally in removing the barriers that traditional child support enforcement
poses to fragile families. It has taken sixty years to build the income security and
family support systems that in many ways undermine now the role of fathers in the
lives of low-income children and families. These systems are well integrated at fed-
eral, state and local levels. It will take more than a brief, block-grant program to
restructure these systems, so that they can help restore fathers to their children
and families.

Nevertheless, these two small flaws in the current draft of the bill do not diminish
the enormous potential of your efforts to promote fatherhood in this country. Along
with other participants in the Strengthening Fragile Families Initiative, I look for-
ward to working with you to achieve our mutual goals. I also look forward to your
questions and the opportunity to exchange ideas. during the dialogue that follows

ese comments. Thank you again for your efforts in this critical area.

Chairman SHAW. Thank yous Dr. Mincy.
Dr. Primus, welcome back.

STATEMENT OF WENDELL PRIMUS, DIRECTOR OF INCOME
SECURITY, CENTER ON BUDGET AND POLICY PRIORITIES

Mr. Primus. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee,
thank you for the opportunity to testify on the subject of promising
approaches to promote fatherhood. I would like to congratulate you
on calling attention to the importance of fathers and the need to
assist noncustodial parents in meeting their parental obligations.
The center supports the thrust of this hearing and the goals that
it seeks to attain. We Support the intent of H.R. 3314, but we have
two serious concerns with the bill as currently drafted.

First, the resources in the bill need to be more narrowly focused
on those noncustodial parents represented by the first panel that
testified here today. Second, we believe the bill should also include
a set of policies that would ensure that when noncustodial parents
pay child support, their children’s financial circumstances actuall;
improve. Even if H.R. 3314 can spend no more than $2 billion, 1
suggest that the Subcommittee consider reallocating a portion of
the bill’s limited funds for this purpose.

Just as welfare reform during the early nineties transformed
welfare offices from disbursement offices to a focus on placing


59

impossible and not in the best interest of the children and the mother. As policies
are put in place to increase noncustodial fathers’ involvement with their children,
care must be taken to ensure the safety of children and their mothers.

Increasing the Effectiveness of Paid Child Support
While H.R. 3314 does not provide funding for such purposes, it is also important
to enact policies that increase the effectiveness of paid child support. Substantial

ass-throughs/disregards of child support and subsidization of those payments to
feip eliminate the high tax rates on child support—or rather, increase the small or
nonexistent amount of paid child support that actually benefits low-income chil-
dren—would help attain the goals of the legislation and would perfectly complement
the programs that will be funded by the bill.

Noncustodial parents are often reluctant to pay—and sometimes go to great
lengths not to pay—their child support orders because they do not feel that the pay-
ments are actually benefitting their children. Disregarding substantial amounts of
child support paid and subsidizing those child support payments would help ensure
that the child support that is paid actually helps improve the children’s well-being
and thereby encourages noncustodial fathers to want to pay child support.

I would like to describe one concrete addition to the bill that I would urge you
to consider—passing through a substantial portion of paid child support. Prior to the
mid-1980s, al child support collected on behalf of welfare-receiving families was re-
tained by the government as reimbursement for Aid to Families with Dependent
Children (AFDC) payments to the family.¢ This was a contributing factor to the re-
luctance of noncustodial parents to pay child support. To help address this problem,
the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 cl aged the provisions governing distribution of
child support to families receiving AFDC by “passin; through” up to $50 of child
support collected by the Child Support Enforcement Office to the AFDC family.

fowever, the 1996 welfare law repealed this pass-through requirement. Under
the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) block grant rules, states are
free to continue the pass-through, completely eliminate it, or expand it. Regardless
of what pass-through policy they adopt, states must send to the federal government
a fixed share of the total amount of support collected on behalf of children receiving
assistance from TANF-funded programs. Sixteen states have chosen to continue the
pass-through, 33 states have completely eliminated it, and 2 states have expanded
the pass-through.” In two states—Wisconsin and Connecticut—the entire amount of
child support paid is passed through.

Increasing pass-throughs/disregards would not only improve children’s financial
well-being, but would rovide an incentive to the noncustodial father to pay
child support. I would therefore urge you to consider a substantial disregard of child
support oF 50 percent, 75 percent or even more), as it would greatly complement
the legislation. In this era of no unfunded mandates and devolution, I recognize that
states cannot just be ordered to pass through a certain amount of child support. I
would urge that you legislate the following offer to states: they do not have to turn
over their child support collections to the Federal government if they pass through
a significant portion of the child support collected to the custodial families. I would
also apply the disregard to monies collected Shrough the child support enforcement
system, including changes in the IRS refund distribution rules that would make the
distribution “family friendly.”® The states would be given the simple choice: pay the
family or pay the Feds. This would cost both the federal and state governments, but
would greatly benefit low-income families and also change the dynamic between cus-
todial and noncustodial parents because custodial parents would have a more vested
interest in whether or not the noncustodial parent pays child support.

‘The money passed through to the custodial families would significantly improve
the well-being of the children. For example, in Florida, where there is no pass-

© Throughout this testimony, a child support pass-through and disregard are intended to mean
the same thing. In other words, I am advocating that a substantial | portion of the child support
paid should be passed through to the mother, but without affecting the level of TANF benefits—
it is disregarded from income when calculating the benefit level.

®With one minor exception: in approximately 11 states with “fill the gap” policies, not all of
the child support collected was retained.

"Paula Roberts. State Action Re $50 Pass-through and Disregard. Center for Law and Social
Policy, January 1998,

8 The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) es-
tablished “family friendly” payment distribution rules, whereby child support paid by the non-
custodial parent would first. go to pay child support debt to the custodial family and the remain-
der would go towards repaying debt to the state last. However, these rules do not apply to child
support debt collected through the IRS. I am proposing that these family friendly rules be ex-
tended to include child support payments collected through the IRS.


13

In 1992, the Baltimore City Health Department, Office of Maternal and Infant
Care, was awarded one of 15 federal Healthy Start grants. These dollars allowed
us to greatly expand on the Baltimore Project model and to include services to fa-
thers. The first year of the grant was spent in research, planning and program de-
sign. I was selected as the person responsible for the development of the new Men’s
Services Program.

On June 8, 1993, we began a pilot program targeted to 60 men who were the fa-
thers of babies born to Healthy Start female clients. We established four goals dur-
ing the pilot phase. They were as follows:

* Attendance at pre-natal appointments;

« Attendance at pediatric appointments;

* Attendance at fathers’ curriculum groups;

* Attendance at a therapeutic support group.

The staff consisted of the Coordinator and two Men’s Services Advocates. In July
1994, at the conclusion of the pilot Phase, ‘we expanded the rogram to include 1
men. We increased the staff to include two additional Men’s Services Advocates.

In December 1995, the program further expanded to provide services to 100 addi-
tional fathers in East Baltimore. Each site has a Coordinator and four Men’s Serv-
ices Advocates, with a total enrollment as of July 22, 1997, exceeding 200 fathers.
The Men’s Services staff takes the highest risk dads and transforms them into nur-
turing parents through an intensive support and case management process.

Over the course of the last four years, a general profile has emerged of the fathers
we have served:

* The average age is 24.2 years.

« The average father dropped out of school after the ninth grade.

At enrollment, approximately 80% of the fathers report being unemployed or
underemployed.

* The majority of the fathers have little or no relationship with their fathers.

Although this profile is discouraging, through advocacy, education, support, and
a no-nonsense approach in providing services to the men, we have seen significant
changes in attitudes and behavior. Examples of the types of changes that can occur
are Anthony Edwards and Paul Hope.

Fathers like Anthony and Paul can be very difficult to engage. With our intensive
outreach and home visiting efforts, we are able to meet these men in their own com-
munities and convince them that we are a positive alternative to their often chaotic
lifestyles on a voluntary basis. Men who enroll in the program are assigned an advo-
cate, receive intensive case management services, parenting and life skills, peer sup-
port, and real jobs.

All fathers enrolled in the program, who meet our standards and show a commit-
ment to their families, to their communities, and to themselves are eligible for our
two employment programs.

We have integrated a lead abatement grant from the Department of Housing and
Urban Development into the Men’s Services program and are able to guarantee em-

loyment in the construction field for those men who are committed to turning their
ives around.

Recently, we implemented the STRIVE a readiness Program. This nationally
recognized program was featured on the CBS news show “60 Minutes.” It uses a
no-nonsense, tough love approach in preparing hard to employ residents from Amer-
ica’s poorest communities for employment and placement into real jobs. One of the
key elements in STRIVE is its commitment to follow graduates for two years follow-
ing placement, Graduates maintain an 80% job retention rate during that period.
Fathers from the program who are not referred to our HUD funded project are re-
ferred to STRIVE.

Finally, I would like to comment on the “Father’s Count Initiative.” As I under-
stand it, the project is designed to achieve two goals. First, projects must encourage
marriage and better parenting by fathers. Second, projects must feature activities
that help fathers obtain employment or increase their skills so they can qualify for
higher-pa ing jobs. I believe that the program’s goals of encouraging better parent-
ing by fathers, and the emphasis on employment activities to increase skills for ac-
cess to higher paying jobs, are widely supported.

The requirement that a potential grantee must encourage marriage is a sticky
point. Earlier, I gave a roiile of fathers in my program at I have found to be
similar to the profile of fathers enrolled in a number of responsible fatherhood pro-
grams around the country. As a practitioner, I can tell you that programs that work
with low income non-custodial fathers and promote or encourage marriage without
first working on the aforementioned barriers will lose credibility, with not only par-
ticipants, but with the community at large. There is however, a possible solution.
A common ground called “the principles of marriage.” Many of the communities



CONTENTS

Advisory of July 23, 1998, announcing the hearing ..
WITNESSES

Baltimore City Healthy Start Program
Joseph T. Jones, Jr
Paul Hope ..
Anthony Edwards .
Victor Downing, Sr., and Victor Downing, Jr
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Wendell Primus
Ford Foundation, Ronald B. Mincy .
Institute for Responsible Fatherhood and Family Revitalization, Charles A.

Manpower stration Research Corporation, Gordon L. Berlin
National Fatherhood Initiative, Wade F. Horn

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Catholic Charities/North, Lynn, MA, statement
Center for Families, West Lafayette, IN, and Purdue University, statemen
Citizens for Parental Accountability, Chantilly, VA, Pam Cave, statement
Connecticut, State of, Commission on Children, Hartford, CT, letter ...



34

senteeism; dropping out; involvement in socially alienated peer groups, and
the so-called ‘teenage syndrome’ of behaviors that tend to hang together—
smoking, drinking, early and frequent sexual experience, and in the more
extreme cases, drugs, suicide, vandalism, violence, and criminal acts.”"4

THE Historic ROLE OF THE FATHER IN PUBLIC POLICY

Since the 1950's, the fathers’ role in public policy has been mostly about paternity
establishment and child support enforcement. This is not, of course, without merit.
‘ny man who fathers a child ought to be held financially responsible for that child.
But as important as paternity establishment and child support enforcement may be,
they are by themselves unlikely to substantially improve the well-being of children
for several reasons.

First, paternity establishment does not equal child support. In fact, only one in
four single women with children living below the poverty line receive any child sup-
port from the non-custodial father.12 Some unwed fathers, especially in low-income
communities, may lack the financial resources to provide economically for their chil-
dren. For these men, establishing paternity may not translate into economic support
for the child.

But a lack of earnings does not seem to be the only explanation for the low rate
of child support. Although studies show a substantial range of income, the average
child on AFDC has a father who earns an annual income of approximately $15,000,
indicating some ability to pay child support.!3 Thus, even when unwed fathers can
afford to pay, many don't—this despite spending over $3 billion dollars annually on
child support enforcement efforts. Although precise data are not available, reasons
frequently cited for lack of payment by non-resident fathers who could afford to pay
child support include parental conflict, paternal substance abuse, remarriage, and
simple disinterest in the welfare of the child or mother.

Second, even if paternity establishment led to a child support award, the average
level of child support (about $3000 per year!) is unlikely to move large numbers
of children out of poverty. Some may move out of poverty marginally. But moving
from poverty to near poverty is not associated with significant improvements in
child outcomes,»® absent changes in family structure or workforce attachment.

Third, an exclusive emphasis on child support enforcement may only drive these
men farther away from their children. As word circulates within low-income commu-
nities that cooperating with paternity establishment but failing to comply with child
support orders may result in imprisonment or revocation of one’s driver’s license,
many may simply choose to become less involved with their children. Thus, the un-
intended consequence of such policies is to decrease, not increase, the number of
children growing up with fathers, proving once again that no good policy goes
unpunished.

Finally, a narrow focus on child support enforcement ignores the many non-
economic contributions that fathers make to the well-being of their children. While
the provision of economic support is certainly important, it is neither the only nor
the most important role that fathers play. Emphasizing fatherhood in largely eco-
nomic terms has helped to contribute to its demise. After all, if a father is little
more than a paycheck to his children, he can easily be replaced by a welfare pay-
ment. If we want fathers to be more than just money machines, we will need a pub-
lic policy that supports their work as nurturers, disciplinarians, mentors, moral in-
structors and skill coaches, and not just as economic providers.

If paternity establishment and child support enforcement by themselves are not
the answer, then what is?

11Urie Bronfenbrenner, “What do Families do?” Family Affairs (Winter/Spring 1991): 1-6.
b seWays and Me Means Committee, U.S. House of Representatives, 1996 Green Book. Washington,
.C., 1

‘Si Clay Shaw, “Napey Le Johnson, and Fred Grandy, Moving Ahead: How Americans Can
Reduce Poverty Thr fork. U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means,
Sune, 1992, Table 7 (p, 26).

14Ways and Means Committee, U.S. House of Representatives, 1996 Green Book. Washington,
D.C., 1996, p. 578.

158ee, for example, Kristen A. Moore, Donna Ruane Morrison, Martha Zaslow and Dana A.
Glei, Ebbing and Flowing, Learning and Growing: Family Economie Resources and Children’
Development. Paper presented at the Workshop on Welfare and Child Development sponsored
by the Board of Children and Families of the National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development's Family and Child Well-Being Network.



76

the Federal Government is obstructing the opportunity to > promote
just good morals, as you spoke of, in conjunction with our churches.

We appreciate each of you being here. Mr. Primus, we look for-
ward to your return. It is always interesting to listen to your com-
ments.

Mr. PRIMUS. Thank you.

Mr. COLLINS. We're all in high hopes that everything that we
have done will work as it was intended to. But we all know that
we're all human, and that’s the reason that the Chairman contin-
ues to hold these types of hearings and promote different ideas of
how to deal with a situation that is going to take a long time to
change and go back to where we were 30, 40, 50 years ago with
community and families.

It is interesting too to hear you state that this could be funded
with existing funds, with existing programs, meaning that there
would not be an additional cost, but just with the discretionary pro-
visions that we put in for the States, that they could take some of
those funds and use them for this type of purpose and to help pro-
mote fatherhood and family. Hopefully, the Federal Government
will not step in and try to challenge any portion of this idea of
Chairman Shaw’s that would promote, allow religious faith-based
organizations to participate.

Mr. Mincy, do you want to say something?

Mr. Mrncy. Yes. Mr. Collins, not only is this a hypothetical, but
it is occurring. You heard Mr. Jones’ comment about the Partners
for Fragile Families project in which the Office of Child Support
Enforcement and the Ford Foundation and the Mott Foundation
are working together in now 13 communities around the country
where they are using existing funding and finding more creative
ways of using child support funds to support fathers engagement
with their children, to support team parenting, to support employ-
ment and training services for fathers, and to help you get to your
goal, which was to increase paternity establishment rates, to in-
crease work, and to encourage the formation and maintenance of
two-parent families.

I think one of the issues is that as we sort of observe how this
project is working out on the ground, there is a lot of uncertainty
at the State level as to whether or not they indeed can take advan-
tage of the flexibility that the Congress has provided. I think over
the next 3 years that this project will be running, it will be a very
important laboratory of how, with existing funds, we can restruc-
ture the set of incentives and penalties in relationships across
agencies in ways that do get to your goal, which is to encourage
the formation and maintenance of two-parent families within a re-
vised structure with existing funds.

Mr. BALLARD. Mr. Collins, Dr. Mincy in his opening comments
quoted Malachi 4, verse 5 and 6 which is a cornerstone in our
agency. We believe that a man’s heart when it is changed by God,
he will find his own job. He will go into his own education and be-
come a good man.

I was in prison 30 years ago and was very violent, hadn’t fin-
ished high school. I was honorably discharged. My heart was con-
verted to Christ in prison. I came out of prison. I have a son who
is 5 years old. I adopted him in 1959. Jobs were hard to get. But


22

Mr. JONES. The way that the program is staffed, I have a pro-
gram at east Baltimore, west Baltimore, each program has a case
coordinator or a case manager, if you will. Under that case coordi-
nator, there are four positions called men’s services advocates. Two
of them have just been changed to men’s services counselor. You
have a case coordinator, you have two men’s services counselors,
and two entry level positions we call men’s services advocates. The
entry level positions, and there are four because we have the two
programs, are reserved for fathers who go through the program
who display an ability to do some volunteer work in the commu-
nity, can get a reference from somebody, and can command respect
and give respect to their peers. When those positions are available
and a guy is ready, we try to hire a client from the program to do
that. That would be the staff.

Mr. Levin. Is there job training, for example? Just go quickly
through what is available through your agency, through your en-
tity. Is there job services?

Mr. JonEs. Job services. I would like to put something before job
services. We have GED onsite. Also adult Basie education and pre-
GED so if a guy doesn’t or a mom doesn’t have a high school edu-
cation, which is the basic foundation of what a person has got to
have in this country, they are referred to the GED Program.

Mr. LEVIN. GED, so right on the site there.

Mr. JONES. Onsite. Correct.

Mr. Levin. And then there are job training facilities or——

Mr. JONES. Right. We have a grant from HUD to do lead abate-
ment. Prior to now actually, we gave contracts to home improve-
ment contractors who then were required to hire the fathers from
the program to do the work. This was subsidized job training for
up to 1 year.

Mr. LEvIN. The funds come from?

Mr. Jones. HUD, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development.

Rey Levin. And are there health and psychological services avail-
able?

Mr. JoNnEs. Those kind of services are referred. We don’t do any
clinical services onsite.

Mr. LEVIN. But you refer them to entities within the community?

Mr. JONES. Yes.

Mr. Levin. And who pays for those?

Mr. JONES. Most of the people in the program are on welfare.
However, for the men, who most of them do not have healthcare,
so we use community resources. There is a community clinic that
will take men into the clinic at no cost and will do as much as they
can. If they are acute issues, then they will refer them to the ap-
propriate healthcare facility that has to take indigent patients.

Mr. LEVIN. And psychological services, are they available?

Mr. JoNES. Psychological services, while they may be available,
is a very difficult issue to deal with in the inner-city communities
that we live and work in. Mental health has a very negative stig-
ma. When you start talking about psychological and psychiatric
issues, it takes very intensive, very individual and private work to
get somebody to acknowledge that they need to see somebody re-


COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
BILL ARCHER, Texas, Chairman

PHILIP M. CRANE, Ilinois
BILL THOMAS, California

E. CLAY SHAW, JR,, Florida
NANCY L. JOHNSON, Connecticut
JIM BUNNING, Kentucky
AMO HOUGHTON, New York
WALLY HERGER, California
JIM McCRERY, Louisiana
DAVE CAMP, Michigan

JIM RAMSTAD, Minnesota
JIM NUSSLE, Iowa

SAM JOHNSON, Texas
JENNIFER DUNN, Washington
MAC COLLINS, Georgia

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio

PHILIP S. ENGLISH, Pennsylvania
JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada

JON CHRISTENSEN, Nebraska
WES WATKINS, Oklahoma
J.D. HAYWORTH, Arizona
JERRY WELLER, Illinois
KENNY HULSHOF, Missouri

CHARLES B. RANGEL, New York
FORTNEY PETE STARK, California
ROBERT T. MATSUI, California
BARBARA B. KENNELLY, Connecticut
WILLIAM J. COYNE, Pennsylvania
SANDER M. LEVIN, Michigan
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland
JIM McDERMOTT, Washington
GERALD D. KLECZKA, Wisconsin
JOHN LEWIS, Georgia

RICHARD E. NEAL, Massachusetts
MICHAEL R. McNULTY, New York
WILLIAM J. JEFFERSON, Louisiana
JOHN 8. TANNER, Tennessee
XAVIER BECERRA, California

KAREN L. THURMAN, Florida

ALL. SINGLETON, Chief of Staff
JANICE Mays, Minority Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES
E, CLAY SHAW, JR., Florida, Chairman

DAVE CAMP, Michigan

JIM McCRERY, Louisiana

MAC COLLINS, Georgia

PHILIP S. ENGLISH, Pennsylvania
JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada

J.D. HAYWORTH, Arizona

WES WATKINS, Oklahoma

Pursuant to clause 2(eX4) of Rule XI of the Rules of the House, public hearing records
of the Committee on Ways and Means are also published in electronic form. The printed
hearing record remains the official version. Because electronic submissions are used to
Prepare both printed and electronic versions of the hearing record, the process of converting
between various electronic formats may introduce unintentional errors or omissions. Such occur-
rences are inherent in the current publication process and should diminish as the process

is further refined.

SANDER M. LEVIN, Michigan
FORTNEY PETE STARK, California
ROBERT T. MATSUI, California
WILLIAM J. COYNE, Pennsylvania
WILLIAM J. JEFFERSON, Louisiana


46

on which society has given up.! For example, practitioners in this field often quote
a phrase about “restoring the hearts of fathers to their children.” Many of you know
that this phrase comes from the Bible, “And he shall restore the hearts of the fa-
thers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come
and smite the land with a curse” (Malachi 4:6, New American Standard Version).
These are the last words of the Old Testament, but the chapter is alive with lan-
guage and images of reclamation and restoration, as in an earlier verse that speaks
of a “Sun of Righteousness” arising with healing in its wings. The work of Joe Jones
and his colleagues throughout the country is fundamentally about healing, redeem-
ing, and restoring fathers to their communities and to society, by first restoring
these fathers to their children and their children’s mothers.

UNDERGROUND FATHERS AND FRAGILE FAMILIES

The young fathers you met this morning are part of a large cohort of low-income,
non-custodial fathers who would be unable to provide for their children or to attract
a marriage partner, without the assistance of community-based responsible father-
hood programs. My colleague, Elaine Sorenson at the Urban Institute reports that
there are three million non-custodial fathers with incomes low enough to qualify for
food stamps.3 One million of these fathers pay child support, a burden so great that
it can drive their family incomes 130 percent below the poverty line. The other two
million do not pay child support for their four million children.* Together, the low-
income, non-custodial fathers who do not pay child support represent about % of
all non-custodial fathers (See Figure 1.)° ‘These fathers look very much like the
women on welfare who do not receive child support (see Figure 2.). They are young,
unmarried, poorly educated, and disproportionately minorities, who had their first
children before completing high school or acquiring much work experience (see also
Figures 3-6), These are also the characteristics of long-term welfare recipients
whose exit from welfare is limited because these characteristics make them poor
prospects for work or marriage.

1Anne Gavanas, “Making Fathers into Role Models: The “Fatherhood Responsibility Move-
ment” and African American Masculinities,” paper in progress, Stockholm University, Depart-
ment of Social Anthropology, Stockholm, Sweden, 1998

?Ronald B. Mincy and Elaine Sorenson, “Deadbeats and Turnips in Child Support Reform,”
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 17 (Winter 1998).

Blaine Sorenson, Where Should Public Policy Go From Here, (The National Center for Strate-
gic Nonprofit Planning and Community Leadership, 1998)

Sorenson, Ibid.

5Mincy and Sorenson.


30

all. You didn’t have a father at home. Did you have any contact
with your dad?

Mr. DownInG, SR. Yes. As a matter of fact, he lives right around
the corner from my mom. We don’t really talk, but we see each
other. I have brought him to one of the meetings when we were
having a meeting. They were telling me that I should go and ap-

roach him and ask him why we don’t talk as much as we should.
just haven’t had the courage to do it.

Chairman SHAW. That’s interesting. You have got to be very con-
cerned about the role model that you are for your son here that’s
next to you at this point.

Mr. DOWNING, SR. Yes.

Chairman SHAW. I was very taken by the slogan. Mr. Edwards,
I think you said it and I think it is probably something that all of
you, if it is going to be, it’s up to me. I can’t think of anything—
everybody has got an excuse it seems, and it seems that facing re-
ality if it’s going to be, it’s got to be me I think is a wonderful

ing.

I would like to underscore one thing that Mr. Jones said that I
think that this panel and this hearing should certainly take notice
of because it’s something I learned just a few months ago. I think
my staff heard it from you. That is a question of these guys come
in, they don’t have a Social Security card, they don’t have a birth
certificate, they have no ID, government ID at all unless they just
bought something off the street. That is amazing when you really
think about it, that the first thing you have got to do is get them
a Social Security card and put them on that track. It is amazing
that the people out there and that so many of the people you deal
with—what percentage of the people you deal with come in with no
identification?

Mr. JONES. Man, it’s anywhere from 60 to 80 percent. I haven't
looked at the numbers.

Chairman SHAW. Most of them.

Mr. JONES. But most of them.

Chairman SHAW. It probably means they have never worked.
Never had a real job, a legal job.

Mr. JONES. It’s not just that they haven’t had a real job. In some
cases they have. But you know, when you get incarcerated, you
have papers with you. They take the papers from you. By the time
you get released, you can’t get the papers back. You live someplace
1 week and you put your stuff there. The family may move. Your
papers are thrown someplace else. It is just chaotic. It is not just
the fact that they never had it. Often times they have had it, they
just are not in possession of it now. They have to go back and get
it again. But there is that population that has never had it as well.

‘irman SHAW. Well, we have got a big job ahead of us.

Mr. JONES. Yes, sir. With your help, we will continue.

Chairman SHAW. That all of you on this panel are on the right
track of getting things done.

You said you had something you wanted to end with.

Mr. JONES. Yes. Serenity prayer, guys?

Grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, prepare
to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.


39

nity in which people are leaving the community in large numbers,
leaving behind disconnected, uneducated, poor families.

Just a note, my program alone cannot effectively address the
issues. This year in this country 250,000 African-Americans are
going to die prematurely. That is a city the size of Birmingham,

labama. Mostly fathers, mostly mothers. We learned about 1
month ago that for the age group 25 to 45, AIDS is the number
one killer. I heard you indicate homicide among young men. All
these are lifestyle diseases, lifestyle deaths of which government
cannot effectively address those because they are moral issues,
they are spiritual issues that only the community and individuals
can address effectively.

I was amazed to discover that out of the prison institutions, 51.5
percent of those men are of African descent. We represent only 10
percent or less of the population. We are overpopulating that area.
We must be concerned not only about the fathers being involved,
but we are discovering men coming out of prison with AIDS. They
are passing it onto their girlfriends and to their wives. That insti-
tution that is one for corrections is really breeding more diseases
than ever before.

I think about the issues of marriage in which I believe without
this institution, no matter what we put forth, is not going to work.
I remember reading that in 1890 in this community we are talking
about, we had the highest rate of marriage of all groups, which
means that during slavery they had three things. A sense of God-
consciousness, a sense of family, and a sense of community. Those
were lost I believe with integration, when people began to move out
of the community to seek for better land and leaving behind young
women, uneducated and unskilled.

How do we address this? Well the Institute for Responsible Fa-
therhood, which I direct and have done for the last 16 years as
founder, believe that, and we have expanded from Cleveland, Ohio,
into now into six different States, California, Tennessee, Wisconsin.
In fact, in Tennessee, Governor Sundquist funds the program al-
most entirely. We just received a $4.5 million grant from Labor, to
help fathers find jobs. We are seeing great success in that area. In
fact, Chuck Hobbs, who is with the American Institute for Full Em-

loyment, and we are in partnership with that program. We just
Finished our training in Alabama, are training 12 new couples to
go out and do our work. That is what we do.

We take married couples who have small children in many cases,
who love each other, who believe in God and family and commu-
nity, and who really hold the community as a very high value.
They move into those communities. They actually live there, buy
homes, lease houses, for the major purpose of portraying marriage
and family as the preferred relationship for children. I believe this
bill is right on target. We also believe that men who have good jobs
become better fathers and better supporters.

I just want to categorically say to you you are right on target
with this bill. There are programs like mine, like the one Joe Jones
directs, that need your support. If we get that kind of support
through this bill, we will not only reach fathers, but turn their
hearts to their children and increase marriages in our community.

Thank you very much.


25

called the Baltimore Project. She enrolled. Then after she enrolled,
I met up with Joe Jones. I asked him whether you all got a father-
hood group. At the time it wasn’t there yet. During the course of
the time of her going, of my kid’s mother going to her group, I
would go and sit in and I would listen. Sometimes I would partici-
pate in the group.

Then Joe came to me and told me that they got the group started
up now, the fatherhood group. I stayed with that. I went there. I
just had a problem out in the street and I went there and I listened
and I talked. It was all good from there, all up hill.

Mr. McCrery. Thank you. Mr. Jones, does your program have a
marriage education component? Do you talk about marriage? Do
you promote marriage in your group?

Mr. JONES. We do not necessarily promote marriage. In my pre-
pared testimony, I talked about where we are today. We are about
to add an addendum to our curriculum. We have a document called
Father’s Journal, that I can leave with you, Mr. Chair. We are
going to add an addendum to that that will outline the principles
of marriage.

We have had a few men in the program who have actually gone
through our jobs program, one of which I tried to have here today,
his employer wouldn’t let him off, but who has gotten married as
a result of going from point A to point Z. But the principles of mar-
riage were missing from the community. There are just not enough
models out there for men to look at, these guys to look at and say
that’s what a husband should do. We need to start incorporating
those in there as opposed to encouraging marriage at a point right
now where they have got so many other things to deal with. Most
of them don’t even have a fixed address, and you want to talk
about encouraging marriage. I think it is somewhere along the con-
tinuum of the curriculum. We will place the principles of marriage
in that document and hold discussion groups Pound it.

Mr. McCrery. Thank you. If you get married, you will find that
your fixed address will be a lot more fixed. [Laughter.]

Mr. JONES. I am married, and my address is more fixed than I
ever thought it would be.

Mr. McCrery. There you go.

Chairman SHAW. Mr. Coyne.

Mr. Coyne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Jones, were you with
the Healthy Start Program when it was only a program that helped
provide a healthy start for newborns?

Mr. Jones. Yes. Paul Hope mentioned the Baltimore Project,
which was the predecessor to Healthy Start. It was a locally funded
program by the Abel Foundation. It was still a small infant mortal-
ity reduction program. I worked with pregnant women who were
substance abusers at that time and did a lot of home visits. Work-
ing with women, I often encountered the men who were the signifi-
cant others or the fathers of the babies. They always said, “Can
you help me?” Over time, I went back to my superiors and con-
vinced them that once we got the Healthy Start dollars, could we
please include fathers in our strategies to help us reduce infant
mortality.

I was selected to develop that program and have been there since
its inception.


9

the Fatherhood Project at the Families and Work Institute, and
also a colleague of mine who is here, Charles Ballard, who for a
long time has laid the path for a lot of us to do work, and has been
an inspiration to many. Also Dr. Jeffrey Johnson and Ralph Smith,
from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Mr. Johnson is with the
NPCL. I cannot say the entire name the acronym stands for, but
NPCL which is here in Washington, DC, and doing a lot of field
development work.

Second, I would like to thank two people who have really done
a lot to get us to the point where we are today. First would be Vice
President Al Gore, who in 1994 held a family reunion conference
where the theme was the role of men in children’s lives. Many of
us here today were at that conference, and subsequent to that
formed a network called the National Practitioner's Network for
Fathers and Families that is designed to provide the kind of re-
sources to fledgling programs around the country who want to do
this work, both publican, both Democrat, Independent, and
maybe some others.

e other significant movement, activity in this movement, hap-
pened a few months ago. Many of you here today were involved
with that event. That was Wade Horn and the National Father-
hood Initiative’s Fatherhood Summit. That probably is the single or
high 1 profile event that’s gotten us to the point where fatherhood is
a little bit more than just a little cute thing.

Last, I would like to acknowledge a key mentor of mine, someone
who I affectionately tease sometimes as having a Ph.D. from MIT.
That is Dr. Ronald Mincy from the Ford Foundation, who has dedi-
cated his life and a large part of his portfolio at the Ford Founda-
tion to the development of this field, particularly as it relates to
inner-city low-income noncustodial parents and fatherhood. With-
out his support, I can’t tell you where the field would be today.

I also would like to acknowledge the other members on the panel
with me today, Victor Downing, Jr. I can tell you he is a little bit
nervous, but he says he is prepared. His dad, Victor Downing, Sr.,
Paul Hope, and last, Anthony Edwards.

In 1993 the Department of Health and Human Services—excuse
me, 1992, the Department of Health and Human Services awarded
15 cities across the country Healthy Start dollars to reduce infant
mortality. In Baltimore, we chose to use a portion of those funds
to create a fatherhood component that would work with the fathers
of babies born to women enrolled in Healthy Start. In Baltimore,
we have two target areas in our poorest communities where women
go door to door recruiting pregnant women. The fathers in my pro-
gram are the fathers of babies born to women who live in those
poorest communities. Many of the moms, over 98 percent of them,
are on welfare, formerly known as AFDC, now TANF, Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families. The fathers in the program, and I
would like to give you a brief profile of the fathers in our program.

Currently, we have 200 fathers in the program. I have two pro-
grams, one in east Baltimore and one in west Baltimore, and 100
fathers in each. Currently, the average age of fathers in the pro-
gram is 24 years. The average father dropped out of school prior
to getting a high school diploma, around the ninth grade. At enroll-
ment, 80 percent of the 200 fathers in the program are unem-


61

money in the programs, just as was done in the Welfare-to-Work block grant to the
states, The block grant in the Fathers Count Act does not involve any matching
rate, but rather gives the states a lump sum of money for them to spend. I would
recommend changing the structure of the block grant to require states also to invest
their own money in the fatherhood programs funded by the bill.

Third, I am concerned about the bill’s silence on domestic violence. There are cer-
tainly cases where it may not be in the child’s best interest to have interaction with
his/her father or where such interaction needs to be supervised or monitored. While
the bill provides funds that could be used for domestic violence and abuse counsel-
ing for fathers, the bill is completely silent on this issue in the preparation of state
plans. I would urge that states be required in the submission of state plans to take
domestic violence into account in the delivery of these program services.

Fourth, I agree that marriage is an important institution. However, government
law and regulation cannot make happy, loving, stable families. As much as I would
like that result 100 percent of the time, in the real world, it is not a reality. In those
cases where the marriage has failed or where the children were born out-of-wedlock,
the children still need both economic and emotional support from both of their par-
ents, whether married or not.

Finally, I would recommend a slower phase-in of the funds and an increase in the
funds in the later years of the block grant. Often when states are presented with
such a large amount of money in the first year, it goes unspent because states are
not given enough planning time. Instead, I would suggest redistributing the funding
levels in the following way: $50,000,000 for FY 2000; $200,000,000 for FY 2001;
$450,000,000 for FY 2002; $60,000,000 for FY 2003; and $600,000,000 for FY 2004.

OTHER “PROMISING APPROACHES TO PROMOTE FATHERHOOD”

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I would note that there are several programs al-
ready in existence which support the goals of “helping poor and low-income fathers
establish positive relationships with their children and the children’s mothers,
moting responsible parenting and increasing family income.” Specifically, Welfare-
to-Work, Title XX, the EITC for childless workers and TANF currently promote
these goals of the Fathers Count Act. Accordingly, cuts to these programs for the
purposes of offsetting the cost of this bill or any other legislation severely under-
mine the goals you have set forth.

Fourteen states currently have competitive Welfare-to-Work grants that target
noncustodial parents and 15 states currently have formula grants that target non-
custodial parents, Michigan is spending almost all of its Welfare-to-Work dollars on
this population. These grants are seed money for the vision that I have laid out
today and for the goals that you, Mr. Chairman, have set for low-income fathers.

Since the time when you originally introduced the Fathers Count Act, the Con-
gress has taken a big step backwards in achieving the goals you have laid out in
the bill. Almost all of the goals of the Fathers Count Act could have been served
under Title XX, but since the introduction of H.R. 3314, Title XX was cut in’the
highway bill by some $2.7 billion over the time frame of H.R. 3314. As much as I
support H.R. 3314, we must recognize that cuts like those to Title XX are moving
us away from the goals of the Fathers Count Act and further cuts will significantly
undermine the ability of states to achieve these goals.

Meanwhile, the EITC for childless workers helps to provide some tax relief for a
portion of the noncustodial fathers that the Fathers Count Act is trying to help.
These workers receive little aid from other government assistance programs and pay
an unusually high percentage of their small incomes in federal taxes.? Eliminating
the EITC for childless workers would substantially increase the federal tax burdens
for these fathers, making it even more difficult for them to pay a portion of their
small earnings in child support.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I commend you for displaying leadership in resisting re-
ductions to the TANF block grant. Again, monies from that block grant are being
used and can be used to support the goals of the Fathers Count block grant pro-
posed here. I therefore urge you to continue fighting cuts in the TANF block grant
and to continue calling attention to the importance of fathers and the need to assist
noncustodial parents—as well as custodial parents—in meeting their parental obli-
gations.

12 Robert Greenstein and Isaac Shapiro. The Consequences of Eliminating the EITC for Child-
less Workers, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, July 9, 1998.


17

I took the worst kind of jobs because my heart was different. It was
changed by the power of God. There’s a difference I think in God
and church, one is an organization and one is a person. I subscribe
that if a man has God in his heart, at the seam of his life, you don’t
have to tell him to get married. He will see fit to get married, as
T have done.

I guess what I am saying is that I am taking the model in my
life and over 5,000 fathers, at which 20 percent of those fathers
have gotten married because of our example. If a government in-
sists on a father being out of the home, and we see what has hap-
pened because of that, but over the past 40 years, we need a dif-
ferent thinking to reverse that. That same thinking that pushed
them out of the homes cannot be the thing we use to bring them

ack.

I think what Chairman Shaw is suggesting here is a whole dif-
ferent thinking about the family, which means that we must bring
marriage to the forefront as loving, compassionate, secure environ-
ment for kids to be raised in. When we do that, I think America
becomes safe for all of us.

Mr. Horn. Mr. Chairman, if I may add one thing here. I would
hope that this Subcommittee would not interpret Mr. Mincy’s com-
ments to indicate that there is unanimity of opinion here that one
does not need this legislation because one could do this with exist-
ing funds. If that is Mr. Mincy’s opinion, please, I hope this Sub-
committee understands it is only his opinion.

I think that this legislation is very important, regardless of
whether or not there is flexibility with existing funds within the
TANF block grant, because it sends a very important signal that
a priority of this Congress is to include fathers, not just as an
afterthought, but to include them as central to what we are trying
to do tia rebuild America. And that we need to promote marriage
as well.

If Mr. Mincy meant to indicate that we don’t need this legisla-
tion, I just want to let you know I think we need it quite dramati-
cally.

Chairman SHAw. No. I didn’t interpret it that way.

Let me just conclude by a little bit of a summation about what
I have observed today and what has happened. I think we have
had a very, very good hearing. We all want to go the same direc-
tion. We think different roads are going to get us there and all of
the roads are not going to get us there. I feel very strongly that
just as we felt in welfare reform that belief in the human spirit
was very important. We believe in the human spirit and we are
being proven right. I am sure that many will say with the help of
a strong economy. But in any event, it is working. Our faith has
not been misplaced.

I think the same is true as far as these fathers are concerned.
We can look in the history and we can see a lot of things that have
gone wrong. But we know exactly where the results are. The re-
sults are that we have seen a disintegration of the family. We also
know statistically, and all of us would agree statistically that with
the disintegration of the family that we have seen, that the kids
are the ones who have really suffered.


AT

Noncustodial Fathers

Low Income
23%

Pay Child Support,
46%

Do Not Pay
Child Support

High Income
31%
Source: 1990 Survey of Income and Program Participation

Non-Receiving Poor Mothers:
Child Support Orders _

86%

100%

80% |
60%

20% |"

0%
No Order Have An Order


49

Education

Non-Receiving Non-Paying Low
Poor Moms Income Dads
60% a os a oy
|
50% 48%, i

40%

30%

20%

10%

0% a 2 goes! Rees
Less Than High Schoo! More Than Less Than High Schoo! More Than
High Schoot Graduate High Schoo! tligh School Graduate High Schoo!
Non-Receiving Non-Paying Low
Poor Moms Income Dads
50% p-————___——-- -

44%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0% = = . =
Black White Hispanic Black White — Hispanic
These data are evidence of what sociologists call assortative mating, which it is
key to the success of your efforts to promote self-sufficiency and key to the success
of your efforts to promote fatherhood. This week, the New York Times reported that
members of Congress were surprised to learn that minorities are leaving the welfare
rolls at a slower pace than non-minorities. Custodial mothers who began receiving
welfare with the same characteristics as the young, non-custodial fathers rep-
resented in these figures are having more difficulty leaving the welfare roles. Even


12

she was going to marry a guy who was 24 years old, only had a
ninth grade education, was unemployed, had a substance abuse
problem, and had been involved in the criminal justice system, I
would fall out. There are steps that we have to take, interim steps
that we must take and that many of the fatherhood programs have
employed to help a guy get from point A to point B to where he
becomes a candidate for marriage.

I am so proud to be married and the father of three children, a
20-year-old son, a 17-year-old girl, and a 6-year-old little boy. Mr.
Chairman, I am scared to death of the prospects of life for my 6
year old, not because of what I will be able to or not be able to pro-
vide, but because of the number of children around him who do not
have fathers in the household. Every day when I go home and I
pull up in my neighborhood, and I live in a poor community, chil-
dren from households around my community run to my front. It
has gotten to the point now where I have to go into the back, sneak
in my own house because I have to get a few minutes break before
I go out on the front with these little kids and my son.

te, Chairman, these men, when given an opportunity to move
from point A, which is nowhere, to point Z, which is to be a can-
didate for marriage and employed, give an opportunity for other
children in the community, especially their own children, to stand
up and make America very proud.

In short, Healthy Start is a unique and wise investment, an ex-
cellent example of true partnership between public and private sec-
tor and urban America.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement follows:]

Statement of Joseph T. Jones, Jr., Director, Men’s Services and
Employment Initiatives, Baltimore City Healthy Start Program

Good morning, Representative Shaw, and other members of the Committee.
Thank you for inviting me to testify today. With me is Mr. Anthony Edwards, em-
ployed as an advocate with Men’s Services of Baltimore City, and a graduate of a
responsible fatherhood program. Also, Mr. Paul Hope, a Men's Services participant
and a graduate of our employment initiative program, who is now gainfully em-
ployed and the father of two young children. And finally, Mr, Jimmy LaPraid who
recently enrolled in the program, is an expectant father, and is helping to raise his
girlfriend’s two other children. All of whom you will hear from shortly.

Jn 1990, the Baltimore City Health Department implemented a locally funded in-
fant mortality reduction program called The Baltimore Project. From 1990 to 1992,
this initiative provided intensive outreach, home visiting, and case management
services to pregnant women who resided ’in a poor West Baltimore community
known as Sandtown-Winchester.

During this time period, I was an Addictions Specialist working with our sub-
stance abusing pregnant women. In this role I visited women in their homes to pro-
vide counseling and support to help them be more compliant with pre-natal and pe-
diatric appointments and to abstain from using drugs. While conducting these home
visits, I would often come into contact with the father-to-be or the significant male.
My strategy for working with this couple was to focus my attention on the male to
reach his comfort level so that he would be clear that my purpose for being in the
house was to help his partner have a healthy baby. Upon gaining his confidence,
almost always I was asked by the men if we provided services for fathers. Unfortu-
nately, at that time we were unable to provide formal services to men due to limited
resources.

‘As one of only two men on a staff of 22, I began to have philosophical conversa-
tions with my superiors and others about the importance of including fathers in our
strategy to reduce infant mortality. Although people involved in these conversations
agreed with this premise, there simply was no way to provide formal services to fa-

ers.