CLFC & The Fatherhood Initiative

As you may know, COPES provides Fatherhood Programming for re-entry and recovering men under a grant from the Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance. Fatherhood project staff members are proud to report that over the first four years (to date) COPES has served a total of 436 individuals. 325 individuals have already completed the Fatherhood Initiative. As anticipated, we are currently running at full capacity, and we plan to run at full capacity until the end of planned services in 2011.

Here are some summary highlights from our most recent evaluation report for the FI program:

· 92% of the participants in CLFC reported that their personal use of alcohol and/or drugs has gone down since they started the program.

· 98% of respondents “strongly agree” or “agree” that they feel better about creating expectations and consequences in their family after participating in the program.

· 89% more respondents “strongly agree” that they are prepared to help their children say “no” when it is in their best interest following their involvement in CLFC.

· 57% more respondents “strongly agree” that if they knew someone with an alcohol or drug problem, they would suggest they get help after participating in CLFC.

· As of October 2010, seventy-four (74%) of the one hundred sixty-six participants who have been offered HIV testing have accepted this opportunity and have been tested.

As we have mentioned previously, an additional data element of the Fatherhood Initiative (FI) project is to track and report recidivism rates of both the program and comparison group participants. We recently recalculated the recidivism rates for the Fatherhood Project. The FI comparison groups (n size = 48) show a 25% recidivism rate. Results from our program groups (n size = 204) show a much lower recidivism rate of 7.35%. This represents a 71% reduction in recidivism. In addition, the Kentucky Department of Corrections reports that multiple studies of the statewide recidivism rate shows recidivism holding steadily in the 30-33% range.

When we combined both the Fatherhood Initiative (FI) and Connect-Immunity (CI) comparison groups (n size = 102) we calculated a recidivism rate of 21.6% compared to the Fatherhood Initiative program groups (n size = 204), which show a recidivism rate of 7.35%. This represents a 65.9% reduction in recidivism. These numbers demonstrate a clear and compelling reduction in recidivism for those who complete the CLFC program compared to others who did not receive the program.

COPES, Inc

845 Barret Avenue

Louisville, Kentucky 40204

502-583-6820

Website: www.copes.org

Disclaimer:

Funding for this project was provided by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Grant: 90FR0015.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.

 

CLFC Links:

Developing Positive Parental Influences | Raising Resilient Youth | Getting Real | Developing Independence & Responsibility | Developing Positive Response | National Replication Sites | CLFC Creates a Platform for Environmental Strategies | CLFC Logic Model | Implementation Options for CLFC | CLFC Options in Treatment Settings | | CLFC National Training System