Father Involvement in Canada: An Emerging Movement (Report‪)‬

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Fathers have been all but invisible in Canadian government policies and programs (Lero, Ashbourne, & Whitehead, 2006), but growing momentum among researchers and community-based practitioners aims to address that exclusion. In the past decade, research on father involvement in Canada has grown from a scattering of disparate studies to a collection in which some unifying themes can be discerned. Much of this research has been produced by investigators across the country working in a variety of disciplines and networked through a coalition called the Father Involvement Research Alliance (FIRA). Exploratory studies, descriptive surveys, and policy analyses are examining what fatherhood means to men, how they learn fatherhood and are involved with their children, and the ways that family law and provisions for parental leave affect fathers' involvement with their children, prenatally onward. Father-focused practice in community programs is also gaining momentum. And some provincial governments have recently allocated funds for training and employment of father outreach and support workers in community-based family resource centers, child development centers, and community health promotion programs.