The COVID-19 pandemic introduced new challenges for families and communities worldwide and profoundly affected family relationship, roles, and routines. This study aimed to better understand the specific experiences of low-income and noncustodial fathers – a group of parents often marginalized or overlooked in both research and practice – parenting infants, toddlers, and young children during the pandemic. Focus groups were conducted with 38 fathers who lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. The majority identified as Black or African American, reported annual household income below $50,000, and had children living outside of their household. Focus group discussions explored experiences related to parenting and co-parenting, father-child relationships, and involvement in childcare during the pandemic. We conducted thematic data analysis, drawing on principles of grounded theory. Three central themes were identified: the pandemic as a time of discovery about oneself as a parent, about one’s child(ren), and about father-child relationship(s); the complexity of sharing parenting across multiple households; and the importance of a variety of internal and external parenting resources. Findings demonstrate the depth of fathers’ commitment to and engagement in parenting, and underscore the importance of a broad, family-based approach to child and family services and the inclusion of fathers as key caregivers even when they are not romantically partnered with their children’s mother or living full-time in the same home as their children.

Recent scholarship has attempted to amplify the voices and intentions of Black fathers to establish a healthy presence in the academic and school-based lives of their children. However, schools as mesolevel instantiations of civil society and culture often preclude Black fathers from carrying out this prosocial role. The basis for this, we argue, resides in the logic of antiblack misandry. In this article, we demonstrate how a sample of Black fathers perceive how they-and Black men at large-are viewed as inherent outsiders within their children's school and the ways they respond to these perceptions and subsequent treatment. Analysis produced three overarching themes-perceptions and experiences, counterfactual experiences, and attitudes and actions. Findings affirm a stereotyped pattern of Black fathers being seen and treated as absent, dangerous, or unimportant to their children's schooling lives.

Much of the early psychological research on Black fathers and families employed a deficit lens, pathologizing Black fathers as absent and uninvolved contributors to their children's development. As a response, several Black psychologists articulated the need to move away from deficit-based approaches and employ strengths-based and adaptive frameworks to examine the social experiences of Black fathers and their contributions to child development. This transformative work was not only central to advancing research on Black fathers but also a cornerstone in the broader fathering literature. Though the list of foundational architects of Black fatherhood scholarship spans disciplines, we center this article around the contributions of eight Black psychologists-Drs. Phillip Bowman, Cleopatra Howard Caldwell, Anderson J. Franklin, Nancy Boyd-Franklin, Vivian Gadsden, Harriette Pipes McAdoo, John L. McAdoo, and Melvin Wilson. Their collective works and scientific contributions provided a critical lens and articulated a vision for research on Black fathers. In highlighting their contributions, we focus on six thematic areas: (a) conceptual and theoretical advancements, (b) research methods and designs that centered Black fathers, (c) description and contextualization, (d) children's development and well-being, (e) theory to practice and intervention, and (f) scientific cross-pollination and collaborative ethos. Last, we review and highlight research branches and extensions of these foundational roots. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

We report on the findings of a mixed methods longitudinal study of 84 African American fathers of young children who were enrolled into the study during the father’s jail stay. Participants were assessed using interviews, self-report measures, and administrative records on frequency of father–child contact, father–caregiver relationship quality, family support, paternal pre-incarceration employment, fathers’ plans to live with the child upon reentry, history of substance abuse, and new convictions one year following release from jail. Qualitative analysis revealed three primary identities of fathers during incarceration: father as nurturer, father as protector, and father as provider. Qualitative analysis of interview data detailed the ways in which the context of incarceration and the presence of the criminal justice system interacts with these identities to impact family structure, parent–child visits, plans for release, and motivation for desistance. Quantitative analysis indicated heterogeneity among fathers, with links between parent–child contact and desistance conditional on fathers’ plans for coresidence with children as well as family support and relationship quality. Taken together, the findings highlight the strengths of African American fathers and their families despite the risks associated with incarceration, including the importance of family support and children as motivation for desistance. The results have implications for how the justice system weighs the bidirectional influences of fathers and families.

Residents of urban American neighborhoods facing economic hardship often experience individual and collective adversities at high levels. This study explores how racially diverse adults experience stress, adversity, and trauma, and how they cope and heal in the context of their environment. Following a critical realist grounded theory methodology, four focus groups were conducted with African American, White and Latinx participants (N = 21) within an employment service program. Participants identified key stressors ranging from financial and job challenges, violence, and trauma. To cope with and heal from adversity, they practiced positivity, named trauma and its effects, sought social connection, envisioned community-based resources, and addressed structural and systemic barriers. The data generated a theory of "a mutual process of healing self and healing the community" through intrapersonal, interpersonal, and structural change. The results of this study indicate a need for peer-led, community-engaged initiatives and holistic, trauma-informed, healing-centered practices.

This essay introduces the reader to the papers in this special volume about criminal justice reform.

Ignoring race when it matters serves to perpetuate discrimination and can even increase racial bias. . In 2019, millions of noncustodial parents across the United States owed over $115 billion in child support debt.1 The majority of child support debt is owed by low-income fathers, many of whom are Black.2 While the rules around what happens to these fathers vary from state to state, their fate is adjudicated in family court where they could face incarceration for their unpaid child support.

Our study investigates two primary questions: How do lawyers matter? And are there more limited forms of legal assistance that provide a suitable alternative to attorney representation? We seek to enhance understanding of how attorney representation and other more limited forms of legal assistance affect civil court proceedings for low income litigants. We examine how different legal assistance models shape legal access in the context of child support enforcement proceedings. Broadly, our study involves an in-depth exploration of the legal processes in these cases, focusing on court interactions and examining them from multiple perspectives and over an extended period of time. This approach explores the meaning people draw from legal interactions as well as the complexity of the relationship between process and outcomes. An earlier publication from this project, which draws from both our ethnographic and interview data, provides an empirical exploration of racialized access to justice issues within family courts, particularly the consequences that result from the ostensibly color-blind manner in which the proceedings are carried out. There are a variety of different methodological approaches researchers can employ when gathering empirical data. In this chapter we present focused ethnography as a qualitative empirical approach that is well suited to legal scholars studying justice-related problems in urban settings. Focused ethnography is an effective methodology for engaged scholarship addressing the legal mechanisms and challenges underlying urban poverty. We begin by explaining why ethnography is a desirable choice for legal researchers studying these issues. The chapter then introduces focused ethnography as a type of ethnography, describes its elements, explains how it compares to immersive ethnography, and examines existing studies utilizing focused ethnography. We then describe the elements of focused ethnography through a detailed discussion of the methodological choices we made in designing and implementing our access to justice empirical project, a study that investigates a widespread problem impacting low income families in the urban core. By so doing, we describe the kinds of research questions, sampling strategies, data collection and analysis methods, and techniques of evaluating rigor characterizing focused ethnography. We also discuss the practical constraints that shaped decisions about methods. In providing this concrete example, we hope to demonstrate how legal scholars can apply this methodological tool to their own research. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the important ethical issues that need to be anticipated in all phases of the research process in ethnographic studies of legal issues impacting the urban core and individuals living in poverty. By describing the utility of focused ethnography, particularly in the courtroom setting, and emphasizing the unique ethics issues that exist in this field of research, we hope that this synthetic work provides a useful road map for legal scholars who are interested in engaged research addressing the intractable problems of the urban core.

Infant mortality is a major public health issue in the United States that disproportionally affects African Americans. Evidence suggests reducing stress on African American women and engaging African American fathers may improve health and social outcomes for families. This study sought to understand the experiences of African American fathers through a positivistic lens and to inform future interventions that support father engagement. A descriptive, qualitative study using the Person, Environment, Occupation-Performance (PEO-P) model as a framework for analysis was conducted involving 45 fathers participating in four focus groups and one member-checking group. An initial content analysis was followed by constant comparative methods to identify categories related to the PEO-P model. Transcripts revealed a range of factors that enable or inhibit fathers' occupational performance and engagement including environmental barriers such as societal expectations and perceptions. Occupational therapy practitioners may utilize population health approaches to support African American fathers' occupational engagement.

The legal profession has undertaken a renewed effort to improve access to justice for low- and moderate-income unrepresented civil litigants. The question of whether and how to provide assistance to individuals who cannot afford counsel is a pressing nationwide issue. Studies confirm that at most 20% of the legal needs of low-income communities are met and that the vast majority of low-income civil litigants are unrepresented, creating what some call a “justice gap,” which has become even more urgent in recent years. The recent recession hit indigent people hard, multiplying the civil problems they tend to face, such as home foreclosures, evictions, social security disputes, and nonpayment of child support. State tribunals that deal with high-stakes issues particularly relevant to low-income residents, such as family courts and housing courts, are seeing an increasing number of litigants, the majority of whom are unrepresented. Many of these pro se litigants live either below or within 125% of the poverty line, qualifying them for legal aid. Few, however, are actually able to access this aid. Recession-era cutbacks have left legal aid organizations with dwindling resources to meet a growing demand. Nationwide, for every 6,415 people who meet legal aid requirements, there is only one legal aid attorney available to meet their needs. To address the urgent and unmet legal needs of low-income Americans, the legal community is pursuing increased access to justice at the national, state, and local levels.For example, the Department of Justice launched an Access to Justice Initiative in 2010 and thirty-two states have “Access to Justice Commissions” tasked with the goal of ensuring that all litigants have a fair opportunity to be heard in civil court. The “Civil Gideon” movement aims to address the justice gap by advocating for an expanded right to counsel for pro se low-income civil litigants in cases implicating basic human needs. This movement asserts that systemic representation by counsel improves the accuracy of outcomes, increases court efficiency by reducing the effect of waves of pro se litigants on court staff, saves federal and state government money by helping to avoid the negative externalities caused by litigants wrongly losing their civil cases (such as increased use of shelters, emergency medical care, foster care, police, and public benefits), and increases the public’s faith and investment in the judicial process.The Self-Representation movement, by contrast, takes the position that political and economic constraints make it very unlikely that all those eligible can be afforded free counsel. It also questions the necessity of free counsel in every such case, pointing out that some legal matters may be more simplified there may be other forms of assistance (e.g., litigant-friendly procedures and judicial case management) that will suffice to facilitate access to courts, and that self-representation may be empowering to low-income litigants. Indeed, there are a plethora of assistance programs that range from providing limited forms of intervention — like informative websites, hotlines, layperson-friendly legal forms, and self-help centers — to full intervention, providing representation for indigent persons. While advocates for Civil Gideon do not claim that an attorney is essential in every case involving an unrepresented litigant, they place greater emphasis on securing a right to civil counsel than on increased resources and innovation for self-representation. Notwithstanding the increased attention and efforts directed at the broader access to justice agenda in the United States, there is still a great deal that we do not know about Civil Gideon. This Paper examines what we know and need to know about Civil Gideon. On the “what we know” front, the Paper examines Supreme Court jurisprudence addressing claims for a constitutional due process right to counsel in civil cases, existing state laws providing a right to counsel in civil cases, and current efforts and state legislation to expand the civil right to counsel. Addressing “what we need to know,” the Paper examines empirical research on the efficacy of legal representation in civil cases, the take up rate for appointed counsel in Civil Gideon jurisdictions, the costs of Civil Gideon both to the public and to civil litigants who utilize appointed counsel, and the administration of Civil Gideon.

This article is based on face-to-face interviews with 20 randomly selected fathers of black and white children receiving temporary assistance for needy families benefits, followed, when possible, by an interview with the mother of one of the father's children in Dane County, Wisconsin. The primary purpose of this research was to explore the sample's level of knowledge about child support enforcement program policy. The informants shared information on their knowledge of child support enforcement program policy and procedures, but also their access or lack of access to social networks for employment to pay their child support order, and experiences with various imposed sanctions for non-payment of their child support order. The data provided an opportunity to conduct comparisons across and within races on their experiences with the child support enforcement program. Results from an analysis of the qualitative data provided an insight into their "lived'' experiences with law enforcement by race when their child support was in arrears. In addition, quantitative data obtained from the Wisconsin kids information data system administrative records highlighted the stark racial differences in fathers' annual (UI) earnings and debt owed in child support to the state and the mother of their child (ren). Further analysis highlights the limited social networks for referrals to employment among black noncustodial fathers and the accumulated debt of child support for black men, which hampers their ability to maintain a minimal level of economic security.

The present study explored factors associated with barriers to current employment among 199 low-income, primarily Black American men seeking job services. The study took place in an urban setting located within the upper Midwest region of the U.S., where the problem of Black male joblessness is both longstanding and widespread. Recent research suggests that Black male joblessness regionally and nationally is attributable to myriad macro- and micro-level forces. While structural-level factors such as migration of available jobs, incarceration patterns, and racism have been relatively well-studied, less is known about individual-level predictors of Black male joblessness, which are inextricably linked to macro-level or structural barriers. This study therefore examined relations between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), health-related factors, and employment-related problems. Participants faced both specific and cumulative childhood adversities at much higher rates than men from more economically advantaged contexts. In addition, the physical, behavioral, and mental health of the study participants were, according to self-report survey results, notably worse than that of the general population or alternative samples. Finally, results indicated that exposure to ACEs may have helped to undermine the men's ability to attain current employment and that drug problems along with depression symptoms helped explain the link between ACEs and employment barriers. Theoretical and practical implications of results are explored.

This Article contributes to the access to justice scholarship by examining how legal actors and low-income litigants negotiate race and racial inequality in family court. Specifically, we examine cases where the state is pursuing child support from low- and no-income noncustodial fathers, many of whom lack the financial resources to pay the support they owe and are unrepresented in the proceedings. The findings in this Article are drawn from a larger qualitative study that investigates how attorney representation and other more limited forms of legal assistance affect civil court proceedings for low-income litigants. In this Article, we conclude that the adjudication of child support cases shows a judicial colorblindness that ignores contemporary realities concerning racial inequality in the labor market. Judicial myopia to racial context presumes a level present-day social and economic playing field. The colorblind ideology is favored by those who think that race is meaningless and race should not matter. A race-neutral approach, however well intentioned, can cause real harm to racially subordinated groups. In child support enforcement cases brought against poor Black men, viewing race in this way serves to legitimize proceedings that emphasize perceived deficiencies in personal behavior and self-rehabilitation and obscures a profoundly racially stratified labor market. Discourse among legal actors and the responsibilization strategies employed in court frame poor Black fathers as economic failures, impose behavioral compliance with mandated demonstrations of effort, and reproduce systems of subordination.

* Jefferson Burrus-Bascom Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development, University of Wisconsin Law School. The authors thank Daanika Gordon, Garrett Grainger, and Amanda Ward for their many insights and contributions during our collaboration on the study described in this Article and Rachel Johnson and Danielle Topp for their valuable assistance with case files. We are grateful to Mario Barnes, Khiara M. Bridges, Osagie K. Obasogie, and Catherine Powell for their generous comments on earlier drafts of this Article. We also thank the participants in the Center on Law, Equality and Race 2014–15 Lecture Series at UC Irvine School of Law, 2014 ClassCrits VII Workshop at UC Davis School of Law, 2014 Critical Race Theory/Empirical Methods Conference at Fordham University School of Law, and the 2014 Critical Race Theory and Empirical Methods Public Symposium and Fifth Working Group Meeting at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law for helpful discussion of the ideas expressed in this Article. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant No. SES-1323064. This study would not have been possible without the support of NSF and our other funders, including the University of Wisconsin Law School, the Institute for Research on Poverty, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate School, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Spaights Endowment, and the University of WisconsinMilwaukee Fromkin Award. Finally, we are especially grateful to the many participants in this study who have been willing to share their experiences and perspectives on access to justice for low-income litigants in child support enforcement proceedings. For an overview of the Fordham symposium, see Kimani Paul-Emile, Foreword: Critical Race Theory and Empirical Methods Conference, 83 FORDHAM L. REV. 2953 (2015). ** Associate Professor of Social Work, Helen Bader School of Social Welfare, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. *** Ph.D. Student, Educational Policy Studies and Curriculum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Perinatal HIV transmission disproportionately affects African American, Latina and potentially Hmong women in the United States. Understanding racially and ethnically diverse women's perceptions of and experiences with perinatal health care, HIV testing and HIV/AIDS may inform effective health communications to reduce the risk of perinatal HIV transmission among disproportionate risk groups. We used a qualitative descriptive research design with content analysis of five focus groups of African American, Caucasian, Hmong and Latina women of reproductive age with low socioeconomic status distinguished by their race/ethnicity or HIV status. A purposive stratified sample of 37 women shared their health-care experiences, health information sources and perceptions of HIV testing and HIV/AIDS. Women's responses highlighted the importance of developing and leveraging trusted provider and community-based relationships and assessing a woman's beliefs and values in her sociocultural context, to ensure clear, consistent and relevant communications. Perinatal health communications that are culturally sensitive and based on an assessment of women's knowledge and understanding of perinatal health and HIV/AIDS may be an effective tool for health educators addressing racial and ethnic disparities in perinatal HIV transmission.

ABSTRACT The focus of this article will be intimate partner violence among custodial parents receiving welfare benefits and their required cooperation with the child support enforcement system to encourage the financial involvement of the noncustodial parent. The majority of the mothers in the study encouraged the father's continued emotional involvement with their child despite the violence. This article will illustrate through the use of a case study the desire of these mothers to encourage both a financial and emotional relationship with their child's father, with safety always a priority.

In recent years discussions of the mental health of women have focused on gender comparative research and racial disparities among women, often with particular attention to depression. However, few studies have examined depression among Black African immigrant women. In this exploratory study, five self-identified African women participated in a focus group that addressed their health and wellbeing. Analyses indicated that depression was a major health concern for participants. Dimensional analysis revealed four dimensions: perceptions, contextual factors, symptom manifestation, and cultural coping. These dimensions influenced the women's perceptions of culturally appropriate treatment. Implications for clinical social work interventions with Black African immigrant women are presented.