National Center on Fathers and Families

Mission Statement

NCOFF was established in July 1994 with core funding from The Annie E. Casey Foundation to develop and implement a research agenda that is practice-focused and practice-derived, to expand the knowledge base on father involvement and families within multiple disciplines, and to contribute to critical discourses in policy.(1) NCOFF's vision is to build the field, bringing together stakeholders in efforts for fathers and families alongside communities of individuals most affected by and committed to the work. NCOFF works with a variety of collaborating institutions, including the National Practitioners Network and the Center on Fathers, Families, and Public Policy.

NCOFF's research plan is developed around seven Core Learnings, distilled from PCN's experiences and confirmed as being consistent with the experiences of other programs and agencies serving fathers. These Core Learnings are:

1. Fathers care -- even if that caring is not always shown in conventional ways;

2. Father presence matters -- in terms of economic well-being, social support, and child development;

3. Joblessness is a major impediment to family formation and father involvement;

4. Existing approaches to public benefits, child support enforcement, and paternity establishment operate to create obstacles and disincentives to father involvement. The disincentives are sufficiently compelling as to have prompted the emergence of a phenomenon dubbed "underground fathers" - men who acknowledge paternity and are involved in the lives of their children but who refuse to participate as fathers in the formal systems;

5. A growing number of young fathers and mothers need additional support to develop the vital skills to share the responsibility for parenting;

6. The transition from biological father to committed parent has significant developmental implications for young fathers; and

7. The behaviors of young parents, both fathers and mothers, are influenced significantly by intergenerational beliefs and practices within families of origin.

The Core Learnings provide the context for the development of the NCOFF Research Database, the Center's primary vehicle for collecting and collating research data for the field. The Database consists of seven libraries, or volumes, each of which develops a different Core Learning. Each library includes citation lists, annotated bibliographies, and abstracts of articles, reports, and book volumes that focus on issues implied in the focal Core Learning. NCOFF currently has available eighteen documents written for a broad audience of individuals and organizations interested in issues related to fathers and families. These include the libraries of the Research Database; critical literature reviews, written and reviewed by scholars representing different disciplines and interests in fathers and families; several working papers and monographs; and recent book lists and book reviews. Policy Perspectives, a periodically published report on policy issues, will be disseminated in early spring of 1996.

The work of NCOFF will contribute to the broad cross-disciplinary research base on children, mothers, and families and the emerging knowledge base on father development, father-child attachment, and father involvement. NCOFF aims to advance the knowledge base by identifying critical, cross-cutting issues emerging from practice and research; encouraging collaboration in the development of studies and methodological approaches; and providing critical analyses of the impact of policies on the real lives of fathers and families and implications for their educational, emotional, and social development.

For more information, contact the address above.