Intenvening with teachers to encourage father/male involvement in early childhood programs

The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the impact of an intervention program targeted at teachers and designed to encourage and facilitate father/male involvement in state-funded prekindergarten programs for children identified as being at-risk for later school failure. In contrast to other intervention programs which provide direct services to fathers/families, the nature of the current intervention was on providing support services to staff members which focussed on strategies for encouraging father/male involvement. Participants were 21 teachers at two state-funded prekindergarten programs. Evaluation data were collected which tracked the nature, content, and context of all parent involvement contacts at the treatment and control program sites over a 26 week period. Findings suggest that a significantly higher proportion of the parent involvement contacts and activities at the treatment site program involved fathers/men than that reported at the comparison site program. Results are discussed in terms of implications for future research and program development in this area. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.