Psychosocial Adjustment of Adolescent Boys from Inner-City, Low-Income, Single-Mother Families: Evaluation of a Youth Program

This study utilized a quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest design to evaluate the effectiveness of a community-based program (Power of Dad; POD) for promoting inner-city, low-income, fatherless boys' psychosocial well-being. This program provides these boys with a 5-month experiential curriculum that includes psychological health and social skills. Graduates from the program were compared to a control group from the same community in terms of pretest-posttest differences in four psychosocial outcomes: self-esteem, overall quality of life, mother-adolescent closeness, and attitude toward physical dating violence. The findings suggest that the program had positive effects on closeness with the mother and the overall quality of life for inner-city, low-income, fatherless boys who completed the program. Implications of the findings and future research directions are discussed.