The Kresge Foundation’s Human Services Program centers its work on strengthening systems for and with parents, recognizing that both mothers and fathers play important roles in improving family well-being.

In honor of Father’s Day, we are highlighting the unique role fathers and non-birthing parents play in shaping outcomes for children and how partners in Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit and Alameda County, California are working to ensure they are seen.  

Signaling that fathers belong

In maternity wards and family service systems across the country, Dr. Craig Garfield sees a familiar scene play out. 

A mother, or birthing parent, is greeted, asked questions, and guided through care of the newborn. Nearby, a father or non-birthing parent, often sits quietly—sometimes observing and listening, and other times disengaged or absent altogether. 

For Garfield, a pediatrician at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and researcher at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, this moment reflects a broader pattern: fathers are often unacknowledged during prenatal visits or not invited into conversations about care and parenting in meaningful ways. 

Even small interactions, such as who providers make eye contact with and who they direct questions to, can signal inclusion or exclusion. 

“When I walk into a room and turn to a dad and say, ‘How’s it going for you?’ he puts his phone down, looks me in the eye, and starts to share,” Garfield said. “That tells me he’s engaged. He just hasn’t been asked before.” 

Those early moments matter. 

Inclusion, in other words, is more than photos of two parents on doctor’s office pamphlets. Intentional inclusion shapes long-term engagement. 

Data on fatherhood can improve policy

Efforts like the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) for Dads are helping shift this narrative about fatherhood by addressing a longstanding gap in data. 

For decades, PRAMS focused only on the parent giving birth. Launched in 2017, PRAMS for Dads gathers information on fathers’ experiences during the transition to parenthood. Supported by Kresge and partners, the effort has expanded across multiple states and continues to grow. 

“For the first time, we’re able to understand what’s happening in families from the very beginning,” said Garfield, who has been involved in the development and implementation of PRAMS for Dads. “You can’t change what you don’t know, and we don’t know what we don’t measure.” 

This data is beginning to inform how systems and policymakers respond to family needs by surfacing insights on fathers’ mental health, the importance of early engagement and the role of policies like paid family leave in supporting family stability.

When systems don’t see fathers

For Joe Jones, CEO of the Center for Urban Families (CFUF) in Baltimore, the need for better data and better systems is rooted in lived experience. 

After rebuilding his life following childhood instability and substance misuse, he began working in maternal and child health, supporting pregnant women. But he quickly noticed a gap. 

“I kept running into the men who the women were pregnant by,” he said. “And these men kept asking me for help.” 

There was just one problem. 

“The work was in maternal and child health. So it was mother-centric, child-centric and there was no way to provide support to the men,” he said. 

Again and again, he was forced to deliver the same message. 

“I had to look at a man who looked like me and say, ‘I can help your baby. I can help your baby’s mother. But I can’t help you.’” 

That disconnect was impossible to ignore. 

“I just could not continue to do that.” 

So, he built something different: the Center for Urban Families, whose tagline is “Helping Fathers and Families Work.” The organization is focusing on strengthening families by intentionally supporting fathers. 

At CFUF, data about fathers isn’t just collected; it is being redesigned to better reflect fathers’ realities and inform stronger practice and policy. 

“We realized dads were struggling to complete surveys [about life before, during and after baby],” said Dr. Amanda Smith, director of research and evaluation at CFUF. “Low literacy, or the difficulty of confronting realities of where they felt they weren’t measuring up made it hard to answer honestly.” 

So, the team rethought their approach. 

“We went back to the drawing board…to reduce the burden and increase the quality of the data,” Smith said. 

The result is more accessible survey tools that yield higher-quality insights that help practitioners, funders and policymakers better understand how to support fathers. 

“It also improves the dignity and respect of the dads we’re trying to learn from,” Jones added.

Father-friendly principles in practice

As organizations work more intentionally to engage fathers in parenting, many are guided by what are called father-friendly principles or practices that help systems better see, serve and support fathers as caregivers. 

At their core, these principles are not about creating entirely new models of service. They are about improving how existing systems operate. 

They emphasize: 

• Building authentic relationships rooted in trust 
• Meeting fathers where they are with culturally responsive support 
• Designing services that recognize fathers as essential, not optional 
• Creating environments where fathers feel welcomed, not incidental 
• Holding systems accountable for engaging the whole family 

As Kevin Bremond of First 5 Alameda County explains, “At best, father engagement has been a blind spot for family services. We’re really good at telling dads what they’re not doing, and not very good at supporting dads with being the dads that they want to be.” 

For Jones, this work in Baltimore starts with shifting assumptions. 

“Nobody knocks on doors looking for Black men to help them,” Jones said. “When someone does, there’s usually something punitive attached to it.” 

Father-friendly approaches challenge that dynamic starting from a place of trust, respect and belief in fathers’ desire to show up for their children. 

At COTS Detroit, a shift in thinking helped spark new approaches to working with fathers. Cheryl P. Johnson, CEO of COTS, said participating in the Detroit NextGen Fatherhood Workgroup helped her better understand the barriers fathers face and how to engage them more effectively. 

From that learning, the COTS Fatherhood Initiative emerged. The initiative includes monthly events that create space for fathers to connect with one another and build stronger relationships with their children.

Barriers and opportunities for change

Despite growing momentum, many fathers still face barriers to full engagement with their families. In many cases, disengagement starts early. 

“For many men, walking into a healthcare space doesn’t feel like a place they belong,” Garfield noted.  

One father told him that walking into an OB-GYN office felt like being in a women’s restroom, a place he felt he shouldn’t be. 

That sense of exclusion is reinforced by broader structural challenges. Limited access to paid parental leave, for example, means many non-birthing parents have little time to build confidence and connection with their children early on.  

At the same time, many fathers are navigating the intense uncertainty that comes with being a new parent. 

“I think another one of the biggest barriers is dads feeling like they don’t know what they’re doing,” Garfield said. “They’re worried, ‘Am I going to break the baby?’” 

Although there is a need to strengthen support for mothers, they often receive consistent reassurance from providers, families and culture, while fathers are less likely to be normalized in that learning process. 

“The more confidence that the dad has, which comes from spending time with the baby, the better off the whole family is going to be,” Garfield said.

Intention creates impact

The evidence found in both data and lived experience is consistent: when fathers are supported to engage, families are stronger. According to research at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, father involvement is linked to earlier use of prenatal care, higher use of postnatal care, longer breastfeeding duration, lower levels of maternal depression and improved child development, psychological and cognitive outcomes.  

“When we just focus on mothers and children, we’re missing a holistic family approach,” Garfield said. “When we don’t ask about dads, we miss a real potential member of the team.” 

Children benefit across every dimension of their lives from consistent and constructive involvement from the adults in their lives.  

“Outcomes for children across every sector of their life improve,” Bremond said. “Everything gets better.” 

From academic performance to emotional well-being, from early development to long-term opportunity, the impact is far-reaching. 

“There’s no downside,” Bremond added. 

This work reiterates the importance of the 2-Generation Approach, a model which emphasizes intentionally developing services and supports that include the whole family. Organizations like COTS Detroit, Center for Urban Families, Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine and First 5 Alameda County are leading the way by successfully modeling a more holistic approach to family support.