Progress 10/01/11 to 09/30/15

Outputs
Target Audience:New policy initiatives have been proposed to encourage states to establish legal access and visitation responsibilities in all initial child support orders, with the hope that this will encourage better coparenting and more father involvement in separated families. Since very limited research has been conducted on parenting time agreements in families formed outside of marriage, the research community will benefit from new information on this understudied topic. Results from this study will also inform research-based curricula and outreach strategies used by Cooperative Extension parenting programs as well as family court-based initiatives to improve coparenting and father involvement. Finally, it is hoped that unmarried parents in separated families will benefit from this research if programs and policies are designed to better reflect their needs. Results from this research will be particularly relevant for economically disadvantaged communities which experience higher levels of nonmarital childbearing. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?I have worked with graduate and post-doctoral students on all stages of the project, including data collection, statistical analyses and writing. We have presented results from this research at professional meetings, including the American Sociological Association, Population Association of America, and Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management Annual Meetings. Two published articles from this research are co-authored with graduate students and a third article is coauthored with a post-doctoral researcher. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Results have been presented at professional meetings, including the Association of Policy Analysis and Management Annual Meeting, the Population of America Annual Meeting, and the American Sociological Association Annual Meetings. I have also presented findings from one paper at an international family policy conference in the UK. Finally, findings have presented at CCE in-service meetings, CCE agencies in New York City and Tompkins County, and advisory board meetings for CCE programs. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? 1) An article and podcast from this project focused on coparenting interventions for fragile families. With a large and growing share of American families now forming outside of marriage, triangular infant-mother-father relationship systems in "fragile families" have begun to attract the interest of family scholars and clinicians. A relatively novel conceptualization has concerned the feasibility of intervening to support the development of a sustained and positive coparenting alliance between mothers and fathers who have not made an enduring relationship commitment to one another. At this point in time, there are very few published outcome studies of programs explicitly conceived to help build coparenting alliances in such families. This article reviews what we currently know from this evolving field of study, and from those related responsible fatherhood and marriage and relationship enhancement (MRE) initiatives that included any explicit targeting, strengthening, and assessment of fragile family coparenting in their designs. We summarize lessons learned thus far from Access and Visitation (AV) programs for non-residential fathers, from MRE programs for low-income, unmarried couples, and from newer programs for fragile families directly designed to target and support coparenting per se. We close with recommendations for charting this important new family process terrain. 2) Research examining parental reports of children's living arrangements has often relied on information about legally ordered custody agreements following divorce. A second article published in the Journal of Marriage and Family analyzed data from matched pairs of parents (N = 1,156) in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study who live apart to compare mother and father reports of their child's residence 5 years after a nonmarital birth. We found that over one third of unmarried parents disagreed about who their child lived with and that conflicting reports were much more likely when fathers spent nights with the mother (an indicator of part-time cohabitation) and had overnights with the child on their own. The results further suggested that discrepancies in unmarried parents' reports were more closely associated with the complexity and ambiguity of their living situations than with the quality of their relationships with each other. Implications for measuring children's living arrangements in families formed outside of marriage were discussed. 3) A third article published in Family Court Review analyzed data from the Fragile Families Study to examine how the circumstances of unmarried parents who are living apart five years after having a child together compare to those of previously married parents, as well as variations among unmarried parents who had different types of relationships at their child's birth. Our results showed that unmarried parents living apart had more barriers to father involvement and coparenting than did previously married parents and that unmarried parents who did not have a close relationship at the time of their child's birth had the weakest connections five years later. Unmarried parents without a close relationship reported lower levels of non-resident father contact, parental relationship quality, paternity establishment, and in-kind support than other parents living apart, suggesting that interventions targeted at this group may be important. 4) A fourth article was published in the Journal of Marriage and Family examined how child support debt affects fathers' time and involvement with children. Low-income, nonresident fathers owe a disproportionate amount of child support arrears, creating potential challenges for these fathers and their family relationships. This article uses mediation analysis to provide new evidence about how and why child support debt is related to paternal involvement using information from 1,017 nonresident fathers in the Fragile Families Study. Results show that child support arrears are associated with nonresident fathers having significantly less contact with children, being less engaged with them in daily activities, and providing less frequent in-kind support 9 years after the birth. This negative association between child support debt and father involvement is most strongly and consistently mediated by the quality of the relationship between the biological parents. Although child support policies are designed to facilitate fathers' economic and emotional support, these results suggest that the accruement of child support debt may serve as an important barrier to father involvement. 5) This project has resulted in a new qualitative data set consisting of in-depth interviews and focus groups on parenting time in fragile families. I conducted interviews with 30 unmarried mothers and fathers in Tompkins County Family Court. Interviews provide new data on custody and parenting time arrangements, decisions, and options for unmarried parents in the legal system. I also conducted four focus groups with 40 low-income, unmarried mothers (n=21) and fathers (n=19) in two NY counties about their perceptions of establishing parenting time agreements in family court. Parents were recruited through Cornell Cooperative Extension and other community-based programs. I have written two papers from these new data that have been presented at the APPAM and PAA Annual Meetings. I am currently preparing these articles for journal submission. 6) Finally, I have developed four undergraduate service learning courses for Cornell Cooperative Extension which are informed by this research. In these projects, students have analyzed data from Statewide Data Collection System of CCE parenting programs, the Parenting Skills Workshop Series, the Tompkins Families Program, and the Parents Apart Program. These hands-on project involved writing a literature review, evaluating the survey instruments, analyzing open and closed ended survey responses, analyzing focus group data, and make recommendations for strengthening the surveys and evaluation design. Students produced a final report and briefing for CCE partners.

Publications

• Type: Other Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2016 Citation: Turner, Kimberly and Maureen R. Waller. (2016) Indebted Relationships: Child Support Arrears and Nonresident Fathers Involvement with Children. Journal of Marriage and Family. First published online DOI: 10.1111/jomf.12361

Progress 10/01/13 to 09/30/14

Outputs
Target Audience: New policy initiatives have been proposed to encourage states to establish legal access and visitation responsibilities in all initial child support orders, with the hope that this will encourage better coparenting and more father involvement in separated families. Since very limited research has been conducted on parenting time agreements in families formed outside of marriage, the research community will benefit from new information on this understudied topic. Results from this study will also inform research-based curricula and outreach strategies used by Cooperative Extension parenting programs as well as family court-based initiatives to improve coparenting and father involvement. Finally, it is hoped that unmarried parents in separated families will benefit from this research if programs and policies are designed to better reflect their needs. Results from this research will be particularly relevant for economically disadvantaged communities which experience higher levels of nonmarital childbearing. Changes/Problems: The final stage of data collection in family court was delayed until late summer in order to provide a letter of support requested by the Cornell IRB. Pilot interviews were completed this fall with additional interviews expected to be completed this spring and summer. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? I have worked with graduate and post-doctoral students on all stages of the project, including data collection, statistical analyses and writing. We have presented results from this research at professional meetings, including the American Sociological Association, Population Association of America and Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management Annual Meetings. Two published articles from this research are co-authored with graduate students and a third article is co-authored with a post-doctoral researcher. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? 1) "Child Support Arrears and Nonresident Fathers' Involvement with Children," (with Kimberly Turner). American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, August, 2014. 2) "Time vs. Money: What Contributes to Children and Nonresident Fathers' Perceptions of Closeness?"(with Allison Emory and Elise Paul). Population Association of America Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, May, 2014. Recipient of 2014 PAA Poster Session Award. 3) "Engaging Low-Income Fathers." Cornell Cooperative Extension Parent Education In-Service, Cornell University, January 29, 2014. 4) Results of the Parents Apart Program Evaluation. Presentation of service learning project to Cornell Cooperative Extension (Tompkins County), Parents Apart Advisory Committee, May 20, 2014. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? The remaining goals of the project will be accomplished by: 1) conducting additional interviews with unmarried mothers and fathers in family court; 2) analyzing survey and interview data on parenting time in fragile families, 3) presenting results of these analyses at professional meeting, and 4) revising articles for publication in scholarly journals.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? 1) Research examining parental reports of children's living arrangements has often relied on information about legally ordered custody agreements following divorce. An article published in the Journal of Marriage and Family analyzed data from matched pairs of parents (N = 1,156) in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study who live apart to compare mother and father reports of their child's residence 5 years after a nonmarital birth. We found that over one third of unmarried parents disagreed about who their child lived with and that conflicting reports were much more likely when fathers spent nights with the mother (an indicator of part-time cohabitation) and had overnights with the child on their own. The results further suggested that discrepancies in unmarried parents' reports were more closely associated with the complexity and ambiguity of their living situations than with the quality of their relationships with each other. Implications for measuring children's living arrangements in families formed outside of marriage were discussed. 2) A second article published in Family Court Review analyzed data from the Fragile Families Study to examine how the circumstances of unmarried parents who are living apart five years after having a child together compare to those of previously married parents, as well as variations among unmarried parents who had different types of relationships at their child's birth. Our results showed that unmarried parents living apart had more barriers to father involvement and coparenting than did previously married parents and that unmarried parents who did not have a close relationship at the time of their child's birth had the weakest connections five years later. Unmarried parents without a close relationship reported lower levels of non-resident father contact, parental relationship quality, paternity establishment, and in-kind support than other parents living apart, suggesting that interventions targeted at this group may be important. 3) In 2014, I conducted pilot interviews with unmarried mothers and fathers in Tompkins County Family Court. The purpose of this pilot project was the evaluate the feasibility of selecting a sample of parents coming into family court for child support cases and conducting interviews in a family court setting. This will set the stage for a larger data collection project involving unmarried parents in the New York family court system. 4) I presented two additional papers from this study at professional meetings: 1) "Child Support Arrears and Nonresident Fathers' Involvement with Children," (with Kimberly Turner). ASA Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, August, 2014. Revise and resubmit, Journal of Marriage and Family. 2) "Time vs. Money: What Contributes to Children and Nonresident Fathers' Perceptions of Closeness?"(with Allison Emory and Elise Paul). PAA Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, May, 2014. Recipient of 2014 PAA Poster Session Award. 5) In previous years, I conducted four focus groups with 40 low-income, unmarried mothers (n=21) and fathers (n=19) in two NY counties about their perceptions of establishing parenting time agreements in family court. Parents were recruited through Cornell Cooperative Extension and other community-based programs. In a paper presented at the PAA annual meeting, we reported that parents emphasized several disadvantages of using Family Court to resolve questions about parenting time, such as the emotional costs to families, the likelihood of increased family conflict, the loss of control they experienced, and the fear of involving government agencies in family disputes. At the same time, they viewed participation in Family Court as a "last resort" in situations where informal agreements were highly unsatisfactory or where the safety of children was threatened. This paper is being revised for submission to a scholarly journal. 6) In previous years, I also completed a systematic review of the literature on coparenting interventions designed for unmarried parents which was published in Family Process. This article reviews what we currently know from this evolving field of study, and from those related responsible fatherhood and marriage and relationship enhancement (MRE) initiatives that included any explicit targeting, strengthening, and assessment of fragile family coparenting in their designs.We summarized lessons learned thus far from Access and Visitation (AV) programs for non-residential fathers, from MRE programs for low-income, unmarried couples, and from newer programs for fragile families directly designed to target and support coparenting. We also made recommendations for charting this important new family process terrain. 7) Finally, I have developed three undergraduate service learning courses for Cornell Cooperative Extension which are informed by this research. In fall 2014, my Research Design, Practice and Policy class carried out a research project for the Parenting in Context Initiative to analyze 5 years of information from the Statewide Data Collection System. Specifically, we collaborated with the Parenting in Context team to write a literature review, evaluate the survey instrument, analyze open and closed ended survey responses, and make recommendations for strengthening the evaluation design. This hands-on project was designed to develop students' empirical research skills and deepen their understanding of how the research process works, while providing a public service. My class has also carried out similar projects for two Cooperative Extension parenting education programs in Tompkins County: the Parenting Skills Workshop Series (2013) and the Parents Apart program (spring 2014).

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Waller, Maureen R. and Maggie R. Jones. 2014. "Who is the Residential Parent? Understanding Discrepancies in Unmarried Parents' Reports." Journal of Marriage and Family, 76: 73-93.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Waller, Maureen R. and Allison Dwyer Emory. 2014. "Parents Apart: Differences between Unmarried and Divorcing Parents in Separated Families." Family Court Review, 52: 686-703.

Progress 10/01/12 to 09/30/13

Outputs
Target Audience: New policy initiatives have been proposed to encourage states to establish legal access and visitation responsibilities in all initial child support orders, with the hope that this will encourage better coparenting and more father involvement in separated families. Since very limited research has been conducted on parenting time agreements in families formed outside of marriage, the research community will benefit from new information on this understudied topic. Results from this study will also inform research-based curricula and outreach strategies used in parenting programs that focus on coparenting in separated families as well as family court-based initiatives to improve coparenting and father involvement. Finally, it is hoped that unmarried parents in separated families will benefit from this research if programs and policies are designed to better reflect their needs. Because a disproportionate number of nonmarital births in the U.S. occur to African American and Latina women and women at lower educational levels, results from this research will be particularly relevant for economically disadvantaged families and families of color. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? I have worked with graduate research assistants on all stages ofthe statistical analyses and data collection for this project. We have presented results from this research at professional meetings, such as the Population Association of America and Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management Annual Meetings. Two forthcoming articles from this research are also co-authored with graduate students. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? During 2013, I disseminated results from this research at professional meetings, in-service trainings for parenting educators, and to researchers, family court professionals, and staff involved in the Hennepin County Coparent Court Intervention: 1. “Unmarried Parents Apart.” (with Allison Dwyer), Hennepin County Coparent Court, Minneapolis, MN, September 26, 2013. 2. “Child Custody Decisions in Low-Income Families.” Cornell Cooperative Extension Parenting Work Team Meeting. Cornell University, January 14, 2013. 3. “Child Support Arrears and Fathers’ Involvement with Children,” (with Kimberly Turner). Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., November, 2013. 4. “Unmarried Parents and the Court of Last Resort.” Population Association of America Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, April, 2013. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? I will continue to: 1) analyze survey and interview data on parenting time in fragile families, 2) present results to parenting educators and at meetings of professional organizations, and 3) submit articles for publication in scholarly journals.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Research examining parental reports of children’s living arrangements has often relied on information about legally ordered custody agreements following divorce. I analyzed data from matched pairs of parents (N = 1,156) in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study who live apart to compare mother and father reports of their child’s residence 5 years after a nonmarital birth. I also analyzed data from the Fragile Families Study to examine how the circumstances of unmarried parents who are living apart five years after having a child together compare to those of previously married parents, as well as variations among unmarried parents who had different types of relationships at their child’s birth. I conducted and analyzed data fromfour focus groups with 40 low-income, unmarried mothers (n=21) and fathers (n=19) in two NY counties. Parents were recruited through Cornell Cooperative Extension and other community-based programs. I conducted a systematic review of the literature on coparenting interventions designed for unmarried parents.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2014 Citation: Waller, Maureen R. and Allison Dwyer. (forthcoming, 2014) "Parents Apart: Differences between Unmarried and Divorcing Parents in Separated Families." Family Court Review.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2014 Citation: Waller, Maureen R. and Maggie R. Jones. (2014). "Who is the Residential Parent? Understanding Discrepancies in Unmarried Parents' Reports." Journal of Marriage and Family, 76, 73-93.

Progress 10/01/11 to 09/30/12

Outputs
OUTPUTS: During the summer of 2012, I conducted focus groups with 40 low-income, unmarried mothers and fathers in two New York counties. Participants were drawn from Cooperative Extension parenting and community nutrition programs and other nonprofit agencies. To make the sample comparable with the population of parents participating in the child support program, eligibility for study was limited to parents who: 1) were never married to the other parent of at least one child, 2) were currently living apart from this other parent; and 3) had household incomes less than 185% of the FPL. Two focus groups were conducted with mothers (n=21) and two groups were conducted with fathers (n=19). Two of these parent groups were primarily White, and two were primarily African-American, reflecting the race-ethnic composition of the county in which they took place. Each group included a mix of parents who had and had not engaged the legal system to establish custody and visitation agreements. These data were analyzed during the fall of 2012 using a qualitative data analysis software program. A research paper based on the results of these focus groups was accepted for presentation at the Population Association of American Annual Meeting next spring. During the grant period, we also analyzed survey data from the Fragile Families Study to investigate: 1)the living arrangements of children born outside of marriage, and 2)the characteristics of unmarried parents living apart. Papers based on these findings were submitted to scholarly journals. A list of all presentations at professional conferences and Cooperative Extension meetings for 2012 appears below: "Parenthood, Poverty and Public Policy." The New Politics of Parenthood Symposium: Family, Citizenship and Inequality in America Today, Bowdoin College, April 6, 2012. "Who Is the Residential Parent Understanding Discrepancies in Unmarried Mother and Father Reports of Children's Residence." Population Association of America Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, May, 2012. "Unmarried Parents Apart." Parents Apart Advisory Board Meeting, Cornell Cooperative Extension, November 20, 2012. "Explaining Discrepancies in Unmarried Mother and Father Reports of Children's Residence." CPC Encore Conference, November 30, 2012. "Coparenting Interventions for Fragile Families." Coalition for Families Meeting, Cornell Cooperative Extension, December 20, 2012. PARTICIPANTS: Collaborators who worked on this project form Cornell Cooperative Extension, Tompkins County, were Anna Steinkraus (Parenting Education Coordinator) and Nancy Potter (Family and Community Development Issue Leader). Collaborators from Cornell Cooperative Extension, Albany County, included Nancy Lerner (Community Resource Development Issue Leader) and Lisa Buenau (Human Ecology Issue Leader). TARGET AUDIENCES: Not relevant to this project. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.

Impacts
Focus group interviews with 40 low-income, unmarried mothers and fathers in New York revealed important findings about parents' perceptions of engaging the legal system to establish custody and visitation agreements. In group discussions, parents emphasized several disadvantages of using Family Court to resolve questions about parenting time, such as the emotional costs to families, the likelihood of increased family conflict, the loss of control they experienced, and the fear of involving government agencies in family disputes. At the same time, they viewed participation in Family Court as a "last resort" in situations where informal agreements were highly unsatisfactory or where the safety of children was threatened. Parents' perceptions of Family Court colored their views of new proposals to increase noncustodial parents' access and visitation by making parenting time provisions part of the child support establishment process. Group differences by gender and race were also identified. The first quantitative analysis using the Fragile Families Data showed that unmarried parents were younger, were more likely to be African-American, had fewer children in common and more children from other relationships then previously married parents. Unmarried fathers were also less likely to be employed, more likely to have a history of incarceration, and more likely to have substance use problems. Overall, unmarried fathers had significantly less contact with their 5-year-old children than previously married fathers, but unmarried fathers who did not have a close relationship with the mother at the time of the birth had less contact and provided less support than those who had lived with the mother. The second quantitative analysis used representative data from matched pairs of parents (n=1,156) in the Fragile Families Study who lived apart to compare mother and father reports of their child's residence five years after a nonmarital birth. We found that over one-third of unmarried parents disagreed about who their child lived with, and that conflicting reports were more common when children often spent the night with their fathers and when parents lived together on a part-time basis. The results suggest that discrepancies in parental reports are more closely associated with complex or ambiguous living situations in fragile families than with the quality of parents' relationships.

Publications

• Waller, Maureen R. 2012. Cooperation, Conflict, or Disengagement Coparenting Styles and Father Involvement in Fragile Families. Family Process 51: 325-342.
• McHale, James, Maureen R. Waller, and Jessica Pearson. 2012. Coparenting Interventions for Fragile Families: What Do We Know and Where Do We Need to Go Next Family Process 51: 284-306.