Cleopatra Howard Caldwell, PhD¹, Cassandra L Brooks, MSA, BA¹, E. Hill De Loney, MA², and Everett Roberts, MSA¹. (1) School of Public Health, University of Michigan, 1420 Washington Heights, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, 734-647-3176, cleoc@umich.edu, (2) Flint Odyssey House, Inc. Health Awareness Center, 1225 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, Flint, MI 48503

Can fathers who do not live with their children effectively contribute to their health and well-being in meaningful ways? The Flint Fathers and Sons Evaluation Project is designed to answer this question by engaging families, as an important part of the child’s social environment, in an intervention program designed to assist non-resident African American fathers in helping their preadolescent sons avoid substance use, violent behavior and early sexual initiation. As a community-based collaborative partnership between several community-based organizations, the Genesee County Health Department and The University of Michigan School of Public Health, the Flint Fathers and Sons Evaluation Project represents the knowledge, values, creative energies and scientific expertise of all partners involved. The partnership has successfully completed the development and pilot testing of an intervention curriculum that is locally relevant, culturally appropriate, and gender specific. Guided by a steering committee representing the three partners, an extensive evaluation of the intervention program based on this curriculum is underway. Our presentation will focus on preliminary findings based on both quantitative and qualitative data to illustrate the effectiveness of different aspects of the curriculum in working with non-resident African American fathers and sons. Consistent with the principles of community-based participatory research, findings representing the voices of families that have completed the program (N=65 families) will be presented in their own words. In addition, the challenges faced as well as lessons learned in evaluating the intervention using a community-based participatory approach will be discussed.

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