The State of Fathers in Washington Study

The State of Fathers in Washington Study

The Washington Fatherhood Council commissioned Camber Collective to conduct the State of Fathers in Washington Study, a nine-month project (June 2023 – February 2024). The study includes a landscape of current policies, funding, programs, and experiences of fathers and fatherhood figures in Washington state, with a focus on identifying gaps and needs to inform strategic planning and policy recommendations.

The Camber Collective team was chosen to produce this work through a formal procurement process by the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services. Camber Collective is a strategy consultancy that equips purpose-driven organizations with insights to optimally serve the systems, societies, and staff to which they are accountable. Camber’s expertise in human-centered, equity-rooted approaches paired with analytical and graphical representations allows programs and systems to identify where and how they can evolve for the greatest impact.   

 

The State of Fathers in Washington Study Objectives

• To develop an initial fact base and landscape with graphical and narrative representation of the ecosystem for fathers and fatherhood figures in Washington state, including bright spots, successes, challenges, and opportunities.
• To conduct an environmental scan of the existing resources, programs, and services available to fathers, and specifically engaging and supporting fathers.
• To create a sustainable process for data sharing and maintaining, updating, and utilizing the dashboards, scorecards, and visualizations to continue making strategic and policy-related decisions.
• To develop a final report to be submitted to the Washington State Legislature and other key state agencies and partners detailing key opportunities, areas of needs, and gaps to inform policies and funding decisions.

 

Update

From July through January 2024, we convened stakeholder groups to better understand the current state of programs, services, policies, funding, and experiences for fathers and fatherhood figures. We held group discussions and interviews with stakeholders across the community, regions, agencies and partners in Washington state, specifically with those that have lived experiences, and with agency partners at the Washington Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF), Department of Health (DOH), Healthcare Authority (HCA), Department of Corrections (DOC), Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), Office of Superintendent Public Instruction (OSPI), Department of Commerce, family court, criminal court, education systems (early learning, K-12, post-secondary, etc.), Tribes, policymakers, foundations, advocacy, Poverty Reduction Work Group (PRWG), Early Learning Coordination Plan (ELCP), National Fatherhood Roundtable, and many others. With the expertise of our stakeholders, we validated existing data, collected additional data, discussed current barriers, determined gaps in services, and other opportunities to support fathers and fatherhood figures in Washington state.

 

 

Research Questions

• What are ways that we are successfully meeting the needs of fathers and fatherhood figures?

  • What programs, services, supports, and funding do fathers/fatherhood figures find useful and impactful?

  • What organizations are providing these programs/services, what are the funding mechanisms?

• What are the gap areas, needs, and challenges for fathers/fatherhood figures?

  • Where do they feel excluded?

  • What services and programs are missing or inadequate?

• What are the funding, policy, programmatic, and strategic implications?  

 

Call to Action!  Please join us as we kick off this impactful study!

We want imput from organizations who work with father and from fathers themselves.  

• If you are an organization or program that provides fatherhood or father-specific services, supports, or programming, please take this survey.

• Our dad survey is open.  Click here for English and here for Spanish.   

Please Email us if you have any questions, feedback or want any information about the project.