Building Bridges and Bonds (B3), 5 U.S. states, 2016-2018 (ICPSR 38159)

Version Date: May 22, 2023

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Principal Investigator(s):
MDRC

Series:

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38159.v1

Version V1

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Alternate Title

B3

Summary

The importance of strong and supportive relationships between fathers and children -- and the effects they can have on a child's development -- is well established. Some fathers face personal or societal barriers to positive involvement with their children such as low levels of education, stigma from criminal records, declining wages for low-skilled men, or family instability. Fathers who live apart from their children may be at a particular disadvantage. These obstacles interfere with fathers' capacity to provide financial and emotional support for their children, which is critical to a solid foundation for child well-being. Responsible Fatherhood programs aim to improve the well-being of low-income fathers and their children by addressing these types of barriers.

Since 2006, Responsible Fatherhood programs across the country have received federal funding administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance (OFA). These programs aim to promote positive father-child interactions, improve parents' relationship with each other, and build fathers' economic stability. Since their inception, Responsible Fatherhood programs have been evaluated to build evidence and determine their ability to achieve these goals. Past studies have found little evidence that Responsible Fatherhood programs are effective at improving the quality of father/child relationships. The limited evidence of effectiveness of prior programs motivated a search to identify new and innovative approaches.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE), with funding from OFA, initiated the Building Bridges and Bonds (B3) study in collaboration with researchers, practitioners, and fathers in an effort to identify and rigorously test new and promising ways to help fathers with low incomes improve relationships with their children and work toward economic stability. The B3 study design added three new program component enhancements to the usual services offered by existing Responsible Fatherhood programs at six program sites, and estimated the impacts of each added component.

  1. The Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Justice Involved Individuals Seeking Employment (CBI-Emp), which works with fathers with recent involvement in the criminal justice system and aims to help them find and keep better jobs by improving coping skills and encouraging positive thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors.
  2. Just Beginning (JB) a parenting intervention that works with fathers and their young children together to improve the quality of father-child interactions.
  3. The DadTime engagement intervention, a smartphone app that aims to improve fathers' participation in the program by guiding and supporting them in making and following through on plans for attending Just Beginning workshops. It also prompts them to practice skills learned in the parenting intervention.

Citation

MDRC. Building Bridges and Bonds (B3), 5 U.S. states, 2016-2018. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2023-05-22. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38159.v1

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Funding

United States Department of Health and Human Services. Administration for Children and Families (HHS-P23320095644WC)

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

City

Restrictions

This data collection may not be used for any purpose other than statistical reporting and analysis. Use of these data to learn the identity of any person or establishment is prohibited. To protect respondent privacy, the data files in this collection are restricted from general dissemination. To obtain these restricted files, researchers must agree to the terms and conditions of a Restricted Data Use Agreement.

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

2016 -- 2018

Date of Collection

2016-10 -- 2018-12

Data Collection Notes

  1. While the codebooks provided for each dataset contain processing notes specific to that dataset, a document with notes relevant for the entirety of the project (i.e., common abbreviations, etc.) may be found under the Data and Documentation tab.

  2. For additional information on the Building Bridges and Bonds (B3) Study, please visit the Building Bridges and Bonds (B3) website.

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Study Purpose

There is substantial evidence that fathers' parenting support - both financial and emotional - and family stability are critical foundations for child well-being. Declining wages for less educated men and high rates of family instability have together created a sense of urgency toward providing services that can increase fathers' capacity to provide supportive contexts for their children. Nevertheless, it has been difficult to design employment and responsible parenting programs that produce substantial impacts in the lives of men and their children. B3 offers an important opportunity to advance the goals of fatherhood programs by building on recent advances in program design and implementation to rigorously test the effects of innovative program enhancements in the areas of parenting and employment.

The Building Bridges and Bonds study is an evaluation of new program approaches to support low-income fathers in working toward economic stability and improved relationships with their children. B3 was designed to test innovative, evidence-informed programming for fathers, with the goal of building practical evidence that can be used to improve services for low-income fathers. The B3 study was designed as a structured demonstration project at six sites (Grantee sites) to test evidence-informed enhancements to the core components of responsible fatherhood programs. The enhancements include a parenting intervention, an employment intervention, and tests of strategies designed to promote greater engagement and participation of fathers in program services.

Study Design

Each of the three B3 added program components were rigorously evaluated using an experimental research design in which fathers are randomly assigned either to a group offered the added program component or to a services as usual group.

The impacts of the Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Justice Involved Individuals Seeking Employment (CBI-Emp) were tested in three fatherhood program settings: Kanawha Institute for Social Research and Action, Inc. (KISRA), in Dunbar and Beckley, West Virginia; Ohio Department of Job and Family Services' Passages Connecting Fathers and Families, Inc., in Cleveland, Ohio; and The Fortune Society in New York, New York.

CBI-Emp incorporates interactive cognitive-behavioral techniques with traditional job-readiness services intended to help improve the employment outcomes and earnings of fathers who were recently involved with the justice system. The evaluation, which used a random assignment design, sought to assess outcomes including fathers' reduced involvement in the criminal justice system; increased financial and emotional support for their children; and improved coping, interpersonal, and problem-solving skills to determine whether CBI-Emp is effective.

The Just Beginning and DadTime program interventions were tested in three fatherhood program settings: Children's Institute, Inc. in Los Angeles, CA; People for People in Philadelphia, PA; and Seedco in New York City, NY.

The Just Beginning (JB) program is a parenting education intervention that incorporates instructional videos and serves fathers and their young children together over the course of five sessions to enhance the quality of the father-child relationship. The intervention was previously known as "Baby Elmo" and was originally designed for nonresident, incarcerated teenage fathers and their young children. For the B3 study, the program was adapted to be appropriate for resident and nonresident fathers of any age and their young children.

The DadTime engagement intervention was embedded within the JB program intervention but involves only the fathers who were assigned to the JB program group and who also had a smartphone at study entry.

Sample

Across six sites, the B3 impact study utilized a randomized control trial design in an effort to provide rigorous evidence on the impacts of a parenting intervention (JB) in three sites, an employment intervention (CBI-Emp) in three sites, and an engagement intervention (DadTime) in three sites (the DadTime intervention was tested in the same three sites as the JB intervention). Fathers who presented to responsible fatherhood program sites seeking services were screened for their eligibility for enhanced program services.

Eligible fathers were randomly assigned to a program group that received B3 enhanced program services (JB or CBI-Emp depending on the site) or to a control group that was not eligible for the enhanced services. Fathers in both the program and control groups could receive business as usual services offered by the fatherhood program. In parenting sites (JB), fathers in the program group were further randomly assigned to an engagement intervention (DadTime) sub-study.

In the sites testing the parenting intervention, fathers were eligible if they had recent contact with one of their young children in the eligible age range. In employment intervention sites, fathers were eligible if they had prior criminal justice involvement and if their score on a risk assessment indicated that they would potentially benefit from a cognitive-behaviorally informed employment program.

Across all B3 sites, staff working with the program and control groups were asked to complete a web-based survey.

Time Method

Longitudinal: Panel, Longitudinal: Cohort / Event-based

Universe

Fathers with low income

Unit(s) of Observation

Event/Process, Individual, Family

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

Description of Variables

This data collection is comprised of 13 datasets.

The geo-specificity of the data is captured within variable GRANTEE which identifies the community-based B3 social-service organization where the respondent receives their services (for datasets 1-12) or where they are employed (dataset 13).

For datasets 1-12 SAMPLEID captures the respondent father's unique identification number.

The respondents for dataset 13 are B3 organization staff members and their unique identification numbers are found within variable STAFFID.

Response Rates

Detailed information about the response rates for each data collection is provided in the P.I. User Guide accompanying each data file.

Presence of Common Scales

Detailed information about the scales used is provided in the P.I. User Guide accompanying each data file.

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Original Release Date

2023-05-22

Version History

2023-05-22 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Performed consistency checks.
  • Created variable labels and/or value labels.
  • Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.
  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

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Notes