Session: "If We Truly Care about the Kids, We Have to Help Dads": An in-Depth Social Constructivist Approach to Illuminating Barriers to Father Engagement from the Lens of Fathers and Service Providers (Society for Social Work and Research 28th Annual Conference - Recentering & Democratizing Knowledge: The Next 30 Years of Social Work Science)

While the positive influence of father involvement on children's psychosocial outcomes across the developmental spectrum is well documented, evidence-informed strategies to promote father focused practices and polices across child and family service systems is scant. Thus, little to no guidance is available for providers and leaders to deliver tailored services that support fathers to engage in healthy co-parenting. To inform the development and implementation of father focused programming, this panel (1) presents findings from qualitative data collected from both fathers and providers as part of a community-led academic partnership, and (2) relies on art-based research methods to disseminate findings across multiple audiences.

In 2021, the current leader of the Commonwealth Center for Fathers and Families (CCFF) in Lexington, KY, had a vested interest in using research evidence, generated from a social constructivist approach, to identity barriers to healthy father co-parenting, and strategies to address them. The Lexington Leadership Foundation (LLF), as part of the CCFF hub, delivers father focused programming, albeit depends upon referrals from providers across systems to refer fathers to LLF. We were able to achieve the following objectives due to the availability of father-focused programming and the LLF's leader's connections to the systems fathers and families engage in:

1)Rely upon data collected from interviews with service providers and leaders from child and family systems to explore their experiences of engaging fathers in services intended to equip them with the capacity to co-parent effectively (paper #1). 2)Illuminate how fathers describe their experiences of inter-facing with multiple systems and services to gain the skills and capacity to co-parent effectively (paper #2). 3)Describe what poetic inquiry illuminates about fatherhood engagement in child and family service settings (paper #3).

In addition to barriers to engaging fathers, Paper #1 focuses on the strategies and recommendations for mitigating them. Paper #2 delves deeply into what contextual conditions and circumstances are necessary for them to feel supported and empowered to heal from prior trauma and engage effectively with their parents. The last paper will highlight how the team used key quotes from the codes that were identified during our thematic analyses to generate poetic inquiry. We will highlight how art-based, creative approaches could be used for healing, processing, member checking, and translating research findings authentically.

With these data, we propose a model and content of a training curriculum that will integrate art-based products to mitigate practices, policies, and procedures (3Ps) that sustain racial inequities and exclusive mother-centric service provision and engagement. This symposium will conclude with the discussant connecting the dots, identifying how fathers and providers agree or disagree about the themes that emerged. The moderator will introduce the visionary leader of CCFF to provide commentary on his organization, dedication to promoting fatherhood, our community-academic partnership, and to participate in the Q/A discussion.