Publications - Jessica Pearson

The Fatherhood Research and Practice Network (FRPN) examined state approaches to supporting fatherhood programs and including fathers in state agencies, departments, programs, and policies that affect children and families. The goal of the investigation is to stimulate replication of effective approaches in state settings. Our review covered four large-scale federal grant or demonstration programs dealing Read More

The purpose of an outcome evaluation is fairly straightforward. Conducting a rigorous outcome evaluation is not easy. Understanding the need for it is: Your funders, colleagues, and staff want to know if your program produced the intended results. It can be less obvious what a process evaluation will tell you or why it will be useful, but Read More

Oregon’s Interactive Parenting Plan (IPP) is the first comprehensive, interactive tool created to generate customized parenting plans. It is the result of a joint effort of many stakeholders, including representatives of the court, the child support program, the private bar, mediators, community organizations serving families with safety issues, and experts in the field of child Read More

This brief reviews some of the ways in which federal, state, and local initiatives in the U.S. have attempted to ensure that father involvement is reflected in programs and policies dealing with children and families. The examples provided are not comprehensive but cover much of the national activity that exists at the state level and illustrate the various ways in which Read More

In 2012, the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement made “Parenting Time Opportunities for Children” (PTOC) grant awards to five states. The grants were intended to: …improve the financial and emotional support of children in the child support system by increasing safe opportunities for them to build relationships with both parents. The parenting time grants Read More

This study reports on the development and validation of the Fatherhood Research and Practice Network coparenting perceptions scale for nonresident fathers. Although other measures of coparenting have been developed, this is the first measure developed specifically for low-income, nonresident fathers. Focus groups were conducted to determine various aspects of coparenting. Based on this, a scale Read More

Authors & Acknowledgement Statement This report was prepared by National Resource Center on Domestic Violence (Anne Menard and Cris Sullivan, Ph.D., Michigan State University), and Center for Policy Research (Jessica Pearson, Ph.D. and Echo Rivera, Ph.D.). The core project team also included Madeline Solan, MMP, and Stephanie Acker Housman, MPA, ASPE and Marylouise Kelley, Ph.D. Read More

Authors & Acknowledgement Statement This report was prepared by National Resource Center on Domestic Violence (Anne Menard and Cris Sullivan, Ph.D., Michigan State University), and Center for Policy Research (Jessica Pearson, Ph.D. and Echo Rivera, Ph.D.). The core project team also included Madeline Solan, MMP, and Stephanie Acker Housman, MPA, ASPE and Marylouise Kelley, Ph.D. Read More

Research with fathers enrolled in fatherhood programs is often limited to measuring the amount of child involvement, since there are few existing quality measures that have been rigorously tested for use with low-income, nonresident fathers who are primarily unmarried. In this FRPN research brief we examined two short measures assessing the quality of father-child relationships Read More