ABSTRACT
Participating in intervention programs can boost fathers’ sensitivity and cognitive stimulation, father–child interactions, fathers’ understanding of child development, and the quality of mother–father relationships in families, while also lessening paternal distress and family conflicts including violence in the family. Family-based intervention programs designed to help married and unwed couples form and maintain healthy relationships by improving couples’ communication skills, conflict management strategies, relationship quality, family stability, and individual functioning have implications for co-parenting and fathers’ involvement with children. In the United States, the Administration for Children and Families in the Department of Health and Human Services launched the Building Strong Families and Supporting Healthy Marriages projects to deliver relationship skills education classes to at-risk families and to evaluate their effectiveness over time. In view of the substantial negative effects of intimate partner violence on father–child relationships and children’s socio-emotional and behavioral adjustment, several intervention programs have been developed for fathers who perpetrate intimate partner violence in developed and developing countries.
