On April 28, 2005, I attended a Fatherhood Initiative Training. This
training was designed to assist those in attendance to get the biological
fathers that we worked with more involved with their children. I'm a
Clinical Manager with a private agency, Camelot Community Care. We specialize in
placing foster children in foster homes. In this profession there are a
huge number of fathers that are not involved in their children's lives in
a positive way for one reason or another.
During this training, I was very engrossed with the information that I was
receiving. Halfway during the training, I felt an urgency to do more with
the information that I was receiving. What I initially attended the
training for was helpful, but there was more that I was supposed to do and
what that more was at that time, I wasn't sure. The feeling that I had
was very strong. I could only remember feeling this way before one other
time in my life. That was when I went on to further my education.
I was born with an innate ability to help people so I knew that I was
going to help individuals by attending this training. Maybe my goal was
to assist the Case Managers in coming up with a curriculum that will help
the biological fathers that we serve become more involved with their
children. After the training, I stayed around speaking with the
facilitator for 45 minutes more, just asking questions and taking down
more information.
One reason this topic is of special interest
to me is that I have grown up with out knowing my father. There was a lot of emotional baggage that
I carried around inside of me for years due to my father not being in my
life. The more I thought of my years of growing up without my father
being present, the more I wanted to do something. I began to pray and ask
God what exactly "do you want me to do". I prayed, I researched and by
mid October, 2005, I wanted to empower fathers to be more
involved with their children and to share with them the emotional baggage
that comes with the father being absent. I believe this is the reason I actually attended that training.
F.A.I.T.H. - Fathers Are Important to Their heirs was born. F.A.I.T.H. centers its
programs around the following:
- Relationship Building
- Providing Resources
- Identifying Emotional Needs of the Father
- Identifying Emotional Needs of the Youth
- Parenting Inside/Outside the Home
- Positive Parental Lifeskills
During our workshops we assist fathers-to-be with transitioning into
fatherhood with their birth children and with the Blended Family. F.A.I.T.H.
also identifies obstacles that prevent fathers from not being involved and
help to identify strategies that are successful in overcoming these
obstacles and encourage responsible fatherhood. F.A.I.T.H. will also seek to
initiate programming for men that will provide opportunities toward
becoming better fathers in their home and more productive men in their
community.
