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ABSTRACT Fathers can make positive contributions to their children's well-being. However, involving the literature and this research indicate that fathers are much less likely to be engaged with child welfare services than mothers. This paper reports the findings of life story research with 18 fathers involved with child welfare. It focuses on these men's perspectives of fatherhood and their relationships with their children. Also, reactions to these fatherhood stories from father and service provider focus groups are examined. The findings challenge common perceptions of these fathers and highlight similarities and differences in perspectives between fathers and service providers. Implications for engaging fathers in child welfare practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper presents the results of a study comparing the impacts on helping relationships of locating front-line child protection service providers in central locations or in accessible school and neighbourhood service delivery sites. Creating easier access to front-line child protection service providers, fostering more positive community perceptions of child welfare services, improving client and service provider satisfaction with helping relationships and services, and increasing families' willingness to ask for help were core objectives at the accessible sites. Using a quasi-experimental outcome design, file reviews and qualitative interviews with service providers and parents, this study presents evidence that accessible sites had substantial success in achieving these objectives when compared with central service delivery locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The lack of engagement of fathers by child welfare services is well-documented in the literature as a serious problem. Towards addressing this problem, this paper reports the findings of interviews with 18 fathers about their involvement with child welfare services in Ontario, Canada. Qualitative analysis of the interviews yielded themes about what men saw as the positive and negative aspects of their involvement with child welfare. Positive aspects of service involvement for fathers included understanding and supportive workers, useful assistance from workers, being connected to useful resources and being given a 'wake-up call'. Negative aspects of service involvement included uncaring, unhelpful and unprofessional workers; prejudice against fathers; and experiencing the child welfare system as unresponsive, uncaring and rigid. Implications for practice are discussed with a view to improving the engagement of men in, and their experiences with, child welfare services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]