Program to Promote Positive Parenting
in Young Fathers Initiative

The P⁴ Initiative was developed in response to several converging concerns.  First, there is a general lack of research in adolescent fatherhood especially concerning particular barriers to responsible fathering behaviors.  Next, society appears to have grown convinced that these young men will not become involved and so parenting programs have almost singularly focused on mothers.  Moreover, there is a growing public health awareness about the role of parenting behaviors in relation to child development.  Research has shown that absent fathers increases a child’s risk for several developmental and behavioral problems.  Finally, the largesse of teen pregnancies and absent fathers tends to occur within the context of poor urban areas.  Our research seeks to become deeply involved in this problem specific to our community – the urban city of Memphis, TN.

P⁴ plans to do several things over the course of this year:

• In depth analysis and literature review of the barriers to responsible to teen fatherhood
• Application for a start-up grant
• Develop relationships with local community groups working with adolescent parents
• Form a Board of Advisors with these groups
• Conduct a series of focus groups with young fathers in the City of Memphis
• Submit research review and focus group data in a manuscript form and presentation
• Develop a research based brief intervention that will improve parenting behaviors in a targeted and measurable way
• Apply for a large scale grant to apply intervention in a randomized controlled trial
• Analyze findings
• Develop a broad based young father parenting intervention for school and community use.

Team Members

Chrisann Schiro-Geist, PhD
Professor, Counseling Psychology
Director, Institute on Disability
chrisann@memphis.edu

Emer Broadbent, PhD
Assistant Professor, Social Work
ebrodbnt@memphis.edu

John Sawyer, MS
Counseling Psychology
Doctoral Student 2012
rjsawyer@memphis.edu

Christi Mobley, MS
Counseling Psychology
Doctoral Student 2012
cmobley79@yahoo.com