The DadTalk blog features insights from dads and Responsible Fatherhood practitioners from around the country. Its goal is to start conversations about important issues surrounding fatherhood and programs for fathers today.
In support of President Obama’s Fatherhood & Mentoring Initiative, Oscar Winner Lou Gossett, Jr. and Deputy Assistant to the President Michael Strautmanis led a Responsible Fatherhood Roundtable discussion and recognition ceremony. At the…
Having a parent in jail or prison can harm children’s emotional and physical wellbeing, so it is important to support the more than five million U.S. children who will have an incarcerated parent (most often a father) at some point in their childhood.
One way to support these children is to help improve their relationships with their incarcerated parent…
Rural Areas often face a lack of access to resources needed to support fathers: employment, transportation, housing, healthcare
Being a father is tough. However, being a father while living in a rural, small community comes with a unique set of challenges of its own. Unlike urban areas, where resources are often more available and more accessible, rural areas often lack access to resources needed to support fathers, such as employment, transportation, housing, and healthcare. This state of resource scarcity can be daunting to new and old fathers, but community-based organizations…
“When we talk about a child losing a parent to incarceration and we are interpreting the ACES [adverse childhood experiences] literature only through a child maltreatment lens, the meaning that gets made (intentionally or not) is that children of incarcerated parents are maltreated children, harmed by their parents and thus better off without them. If, however, the parents who are in prison or jail are seen as potential supports for these children, as buffers from the toxicity of the stress, then a different meaning is made of the loss. It becomes more profound and less dismissible.” – Ann…
Project Fatherhood is a program of Children’s Institute, Inc. in Los Angeles, California. We have worked with more than 15,000 fathers and 23,000 children across Los Angeles County since 1996. Some of the fathers we work with are required to attend parenting classes to satisfy child welfare case requirements; some are referred from community partners; many come to us needing help with employment. They often face challenges related to criminal justice involvement, traumatic experiences, gang membership, poverty, transportation, or homelessness…
The season of dads and grads is upon us. It is a time when celebration and thoughts of warm summer nights are in the air. The spring air is activating our joy of transitioning seasons and the promise of what the future holds for graduating youth is challenging our inclination to resist change. For dads, having Father’s Day fall during this season is like having your birthday fall on Christmas. You’re excited, but everybody else is somewhat distracted by something else; in this case, the smell of barbeque.
The celebration of both Mother’s and Father’s Day seem appropriately timed…
My wife and I were supposed to deliver our son on February 22, 2018. For a little over 8 months everything we thought about our pregnancy centered around that date. I requested time off from work starting on February 21. Our parents were planning to make alternate trips to visit us based on the expected due date. When we were deciding on how and when to paint his nursery, we used February 22 as our benchmark for how soon we needed to get things done. For almost a year, everything in our lives centered around February 22, 2018, so imagine my surprise when we were sitting in the doctor's…
I am a clinical pharmacist at the University of Florida Health Jacksonville, a member of Drug Free Duval, and chair of the healthcare education committee for the North Florida Heroin and Opioid Task Force. However, my most significant accomplishment is that I am a father to three wonderful children.
My passion for helping with the opioid crisis started many years ago while working with chronic pain patients. So, when I was asked to give the closing statement on fatherhood and the opioid crisis at the “Dads at a Disadvantage Community Conversation” co-hosted by the National…
I vividly recall my father’s long fingers and open hands as he spoke and welcomed others into his presence. I wisely knew not to interrupt him when I saw his face buried in his hands as he was deep in thought. I appreciated his big hands when he carried me to the emergency room a few times for accidents I had while playing imaginatively. And I tried to follow his teaching on how to appropriately grasp a baseball for a fast ball or a curve ball. Four years since his passing and what I mostly cherish were his embracing hands that would drain out my worries of the world.
There are…
As the founder of the Center for Urban Families, one of my joys has been helping fathers defy the odds (and society’s low expectations of them) to change their lives—and create a better future for their children.
All transformations require courage and humility. But that’s especially true for dads who are struggling with addiction.
I got hooked on heroin as a 13-year-old kid living in Baltimore. Without a father-figure in my life, I began questioning my definition of “manhood” and gave in to the negative influences around me. By my early…
On the surface: It’s the start of 2016, and on the outside, life in my world couldn’t look better. I’m surrounded by family and friends, working my dream job in my hometown, and my beautiful wife and I are expecting our first child come the spring. My wife is also a Pediatric Nurse – a.k.a. Peyton Manning when comes to caring for young children. Becoming a Dad is the natural next step, and I’ll be great at it.
Between my ears: OMG! My wife is pregnant, and I have no idea if I’m more excited or scared for my life. I don’t know the first thing about parenting and really question how…