Supporting Healthy Start Performance Project: Paternal Involvement throughout the Maternity Care Continuum

Full Description: The Supporting Healthy Start Performance Project (SHSPP) assists 101 Healthy Start (HS) grant recipients (grantees) across the nation. The HS Program provides grants to high-risk communities with infant mortality rates at least 1.5 times the U.S. national average and high rates of other adverse perinatal outcomes (e.g., low birthweight, preterm birth, maternal morbidity and mortality). HS works to reduce the disparity in health status between the general population and individuals who are members of racial or ethnic minority groups. To support these 101 HS programs and communities, SHSPP’s Technical Assistance (TA) and Support Center (TASC) provides capacity building assistance (CBA), including ongoing TA, training and education to HS grant recipients in accordance with the program’s approaches to reduce disparities in infant mortality and adverse perinatal outcomes.

As part of the approach to improve family health and wellness, HS is the first MCH program to include “fatherhood” as a required component. Under this five-year funding cycle, HS grantees have integrated fatherhood into their program and have a goal to recruit and enroll 100 fathers/partners connected to HS mothers and infant/children up to the age of 18 months in an MCH environment. HS provides male involvement/fatherhood programs that encourage opportunities for men to engage in the well-being of children, supports healthy relationships between parents, and provides an opportunity for self-sufficiency and the economic stability of the family. Through the engagement of fathers, HS grantees strive to improve men’s health and provide support for strengthening life skills. Ultimately, the goal of the HS program is to demonstrate that the inclusion of fathers improves pregnancy and birth outcomes.

In this workshop, the TASC seeks to:
1. Describe the TASC’s extensive fatherhood activities, which have been uniquely developed for and tailored to the current HS grantees
2. Review fatherhood data collected through the TASC’s evaluation efforts
3. Highlight grantee experience(s) with the TASC’s fatherhood CBA and the impact that the fatherhood TA activities have for specific HS programs.

More specifically, the TASC will describe the myriad fatherhood-related TA offerings that seek to support HS grantees, ranging from all-grantee webinars to closed cohorts and learning academies dedicated to fatherhood. Next, the TASC’s evaluation team will present data that has been collected annually as part of the SHSPP, with a specific focus on grantee-reported benchmarks and targets related to fatherhood as well as grantee engagement and satisfaction with the TASC’s fatherhood activities. Finally, two HS grantees will share their experiences participating in the TASC’s fatherhood programming and will discuss the impacts of TA support from the TASC on their work.

Abbreviated Description: The Supporting Healthy Start Performance Project (SHSPP) assists 101 Healthy Start (HS) grantees across the nation and is the first MCH program to include fatherhood as a required component. In this workshop, SHSPP’s Technical Assistance (TA) and Support Center (TASC) will describe the myriad of fatherhood-related TA offerings, ranging from webinars, closed cohorts, and learning academies. Next, the TASC’s applied research and evaluation team will present data collected as part of the SHSPP. Finally, HS grantees that have been actively engaged with the TASC’s fatherhood activities will share their direct experiences participating in the TASC’s fatherhood programming and will discuss the impacts of TA support from the TASC on their work.