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Key Findings:

• The average scope of PACT fathers’ social networks was small compared with national norms, although the number of connections varied; 15 percent of participating fathers reported no ties to their family or to friends; 44 percent had 1–4 connections to family or friends; and 41 percent had five or more connections. 
• Those with ties to both family and friends used their social networks for all four types of support examined in the study: financial, in-kind, emotional, and housing. In contrast, the 24 fathers with primarily family ties mainly benefited from family members’ emotional support and depended on them less frequently for financial or in-kind support. 
• Fathers with larger social networks named twice as many organizational sources of support as fathers with fewer or no social ties did.      
• Fathers who had no connections to family or friends attributed their isolation to family members’ death or abandonment and expressed a general distrust of peers. Also, former friends and peers in these fathers’ lives often remain involved in the undesirable activities these fathers no longer wish to be involved in.