Engaging fathers in perinatal home visiting: Early lessons from a randomized controlled study of dads matter-HV

This chapter provides an overview of the advantages of, and barriers to, engaging fathers in perinatal home visiting. Perinatal home visiting (HV) programs are early intervention services primarily serving pregnant women and children under five years old. HV programs represent a promising service platform with broad reach from which to engage fathers and families. Research indicates that fathers impact children’s educational outcomes as well as maltreatment risk, two primary service goals for HV services. Most perinatal HV models were developed for mothers and babies. Sometimes casework forms do not direct HV workers to collect information from, or about, fathers. Women primarily staff the field, and some female HV workers hold negative attitudes about working with fathers. Dads Matter-HV is a manualized intervention delivered by HV workers over the initial four to eight home visits. The intervention is presented in modules that can be integrated into any standard HV program and flexibly ordered to fit the needs of each family.