Family, Opportunity, Resilience, Grit, Engagement-Fatherhood (FORGE Fatherhood) (Adult Fathers)
ACF’s Family, Opportunity, Resilience, Grit, Engagement-Fatherhood (FORGE Fatherhood) program provides funding for demonstration projects that support a broad array of services for adult fathers, to promote responsible fatherhood, promote or sustain healthy marriage, and foster economic stability.
Projects are expected to include at least 24 hours of curriculum-based workshops delivered in more than two sessions over at least two weeks. Curricula must be evidence-informed, skills-based, and relevant to the community context and populations served.
Eligible fathers (or father figures) must be age 18 and older with children aged 24 or younger and may be married or unmarried biological fathers, expectant fathers, adoptive fathers, stepfathers, or father figures such as grandfathers or foster fathers.
Projects must provide services under three broad categories:
- Promoting Marriage or Sustaining Marriage — Projects must provide healthy marriage and relationship education and skills-building services. Activities must include critical components such as communication skills, conflict resolution, anger management, problem-solving skills, promotion of the benefits of marriage and two-parent involvement, and education on family finances.
- Responsible Parenting — Projects must provide parenting education and father-child relationship enhancement services. Activities must include critical components such as understanding child development, promoting positive communication, setting limits and using nonviolent discipline, showing the importance of being an involved parent, developing trust, reducing family conflict, and self-regulating to support healthy parenting.
- Economic Stability — Projects must provide economic stability services. Activities should focus on employment, which is particularly important as data suggests over 50% of fathers in previous programs were unemployed at enrollment. Projects should provide at least three distinct economic stability activities and focus case management on economic stability and employment.
National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse
The Clearinghouse (https://www.fatherhood.gov ) serves as a resource for responsible fatherhood information (Visit disclaimer page). It is designed to promote and encourage the appropriate involvement of fathers in their children's lives. The Clearinghouse provides access to webinars, research products, and other resources to improve the implementation and success of their programs. The Clearinghouse also conducts a dynamic national fatherhood media campaign in collaboration with the Ad Council. The national media campaign’s PSAs are powerful and engaging and serve as a reminder to fathers that even the smallest moments can make a difference in a child’s life. Finally, the media campaign serves as a call to action to encourage fathers everywhere to show their dedication even when parenting isn’t easy.
Learn more by reading the FY2025 Funding Opportunity Announcement: