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Nurturing
Fathers Program Brings Young Males Hope
By Sojourner’s Truth Staff and Center of Hope Family
Services
Since 2012, Center of Hope Family Services, in partnership
with the United Pastors for Social Empowerment, has provided
the Nurturing Parents Program to both Lucas County fathers
and parents who are experiencing difficulties while raising
children.
The Nurturing Fathers Program (NFP), a part of the larger
Nurturing Parents Program,
is an evidence-based model
recognized as “Promising” by the National Registry for
Evidence-Based Programs and Practices
(NREPP). Nurturing
Parents has also been classified as
“Effective” by the Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency
Prevention, and as an emerging practice by
the
California Evidence-Based
Clearinghouse for Child Welfare.
The Nurturing Parents Program is a 13-session program that
achieves the following goals:
·
To foster appropriate expectations for children
·
To increase parental empathy
·
To reduce the use of corporal punishment
·
To foster healthy parent/child family roles
·
To foster healthy development of child power and
independence
The Nurturing Parents Program is part of Center of Hope
Family Services’ Family Resource and Strengths Development
Initiative. Center of Hope Family Services’ mission is to
improve life outcomes among individuals and families living
in urban settings. Center of Hope Family Services was asked
to join a local Fatherhood Initiative started in 2012,
designed to merge family education with workforce
development, and to ultimately increase child support
payment and healthy family engagement. Tracee Perryman,
executive director, selected the Nurturing Parents
Curriculum, and reached out to United Pastors for Social
Empowerment to provide local pastors as facilitators.
Four of those pastors are: Rev. Benjamin Green of Church of
the New Covenant, Rev. Robert Lyons of Greater St. Mary’s
Baptist, Rev. Derek Arnold of Bethlehem Baptist and Rev.
Robert Bass of United Missionary Baptist.
“This is an exciting way for us to reach African American
males, young fathers,” said Green of the 13-week program for
fathers referred through the court system. “We show them how
to love their children but, first and foremost, how to love
themselves. In many cases they have grown up without father
figures to nurture them. We get the opportunity to do that.”
“We give young fathers another advocate with whom they can
share their shortcomings,” said Lyons. “We can relate to
them in ways that they are comfortable with. We can point
them in a direction in which the law can help them rather
than just incarcerate them and, in us, they have someone who
can speak the same language.”
“They don’t see us as the foe,” added Green following up on
Lyons’ observations. “They see us as friends – we are not
‘the man’ standing on their necks. They see us as someone
along side them to help them navigate the complicated legal
system.”
That confidence in the pastors’ desire and ability to help
the young men navigate the system is not generally
immediate, admitted Arnold. It takes a bit of trust
building.
“They are very nonchalant at the beginning,” said Arnold of
the onset of each 13-week session. “Some engage in
conversation. Over time they buy into it. When the focus is
on them – as men and as fathers – they change their
attitudes.”
According to Perryman, “my objective was to introduce a
program distinct from the traditional social services
paradigm. While the services in our community are very
helpful and needed, our community is and has been
oversaturated with social service programs for a long time.
As a program and agency, our goal is not to engage in
charity, or to perpetuate the deficit model. We believe that
every individual has strengths, and the power to make their
lives better. Whereas we are a social service agency, we
integrate Social Entrepreneurship principles. We use
evidence based curricula, but do not rely on a model, a
program, or someone else’s idea to do the work for us. Our
overarching goal is to use innovation to solve social
problems. Though we are a small organization, we think very
critically about what is working and what is not working,
and how we can use ingenuity to fill in the gaps. We are
results driven, and have been very successful in producing
positive outcomes.”
According to Perryman, “The men, women, and children in our
communities are highly intelligent. While they take
advantage of the services that are available, they are also
looking for direction – information, guidance, and support
that is going to help them change their situation. They are
searching for individuals and programs that understand their
situations – what they can control and what they cannot
control. While at the same time, offering authentic hope –
helping them craft a vision for their lives, and supporting
them while they make baby steps. I wanted to provide a
program that is decentralized, and rooted in the village
concept. In this new day of internet accessibility, our
children and families require individuals with increasingly
diverse experiences, expertise, and access to resources.
They also need individuals in their lives who have faced
obstacles and challenges, and have truly overcome them.
Further, they require individuals who are spiritually and
emotionally secure enough to disclose accurate reflections
on their personal lives, their processes for continual
self-reflection, and their strategies for continuous
self-improvement. Guided by these needs, we also integrate
individuals with expertise in multicultural competence, as
it relates to Psychology, Mental Health Counseling,
Education, Early Child Education and Development, Higher
Education, and Social Justice.”
Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, founder and president of the
United Pastors for Social Empowerment, hand selected the
pastors who serve as Nurturing Parents Facilitators.
According to Rev. Perryman, “These were my criteria -
pastors who demonstrated commitment to their word, churches,
wives, families, and social justice. I also thought pastors
with broad personal, educational, and professional
experiences would be a match for the Nurturing Parents
Program.”
Since the beginning of the Nurturing Parents Program, the
following objectives have been achieved:
·
82 percent of parents improved in one or more parenting
domains
·
57 percent improved in two or more domains
·
25 percent improved in three or more domains
·
Six percent improved in four or domains
·
40 percent improved their attitudes regarding expectations
of children
·
31 percent improved their attitudes regarding parental
empathy
·
31 percent improved their attitudes regarding use of
corporal punishment
·
37 percent improved their attitudes regarding parent/child
family roles
·
43 percent improved in their attitudes regarding children’s
power/independence.
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