Ohio Counties Discuss Strengthening Fatherhood

May Leadership Summits on Fatherhood in Twelve Ohio Counties

The Ohio Commission on Fatherhood launched the Ohio County Fatherhood Initiative in 2011 to provide a catalyst to local county leaders throughout Ohio and encourage them to build collaborations and coordinate services focused on building support for father presence in the lives of children. Twelve counties were selected for the project and all are holding a Leadership Summit on Fatherhood in May. Counties that successfully complete the program will receive a $10,000 see grant to begin or continue fatherhood programming in their county. Here are two new stories from successful county summits in Greene and Stark Counties

Strengthening Fatherhood Seen As Solution To Many Societal Ills
By Malcolm Hall, CantonRep.com staff writer, posted May 19, 2011 @ 09:03 PM

Poverty, failure in school and behavior problems were among the social ills mentioned as frequently occurring with children with little or no positive relationship with their fathers. Various local social-service officials joined other concerned adults to discuss these societal issues during a summit Thursday designed to help launch a Stark County project to promote responsible fatherhood.

“We all know about the consequences of father absence,” said Robert Prince, who directs Stark County Community Action Agency’s fatherhood programs. “We are here to talk about solutions. We are here to talk about strategies to put together in our community and make it work.” SCCAA sponsored the program, called Leadership Summit on Fatherhood, which brought officials in from the state and National Fatherhood Initiative to mobilize an effort to promote responsible fatherhood. One of Prince’s thrusts in recent years has been working with Stark County Family Court, placing men on jobs so
they can make child-support payments.

“We want to do everything we can to reconcile fathers with families,” said Peter Lawson Jones, an attorney and former Cleveland-area political figure who served in the Ohio House of Representatives. “I guarantee you if you build stronger families, you will knock out 90 percent of the social problems that vex us on a daily basis.” Most recently, Jones was a Cuyahoga County commissioner. While in the Ohio General Assembly, Jones drafted legislation creating the Ohio Commission on Fatherhood. That state commission receives Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, money that it disburses as grants to various nonprofit agencies for fatherhood programs.

Stark County is one of 12 Ohio counties selected to develop locally based fatherhood initiatives. Jones informed the summit audience in the McKinley Grand Hotel that Cuyahoga County already has such a project, called Cuyahoga County Fatherhood Initiative. “First thing, it requires political will and leadership,” said Jones during a discussion after his keynote speech. “That is where the funding comes from. We made our agencies more father-friendly. We made them reach out to dads. We have helped fathers coming out of prisons secure job training and jobs.”

During the summit, statistics were highlighted that showed that nationwide, 24 million children currently live in homes without a father. In 1960, there were 8 million children living in such a family structure. In Stark County, about 26 percent of children live in homes without a father. But in Canton, the figure is just lower than 50 percent. “Certainly, there are societal issues and cultural issues that drive these things,” Erik Vecere, vice president of programming for National Fatherhood Initiative, said. “Just about every social ill can be attributed to the father factor. This is a huge issue; fatherhood is ubiquitous.”

Greene County Fatherhood Summit

XENIA -- The groundbreaking "Fatherhood Summit for Greene County" was held Wednesday May 18th in Xenia. Organizers say the purpose of the Summit wass to develop a community mobilization plan to encourage responsible fatherhood and decrease father absence in Greene County. The meeting of over 50 community leaders, included County Commissioners, Judges, Directors Of County Child Support and Child Welfare, and local businesses and faith-based leaders.

click here to see a video of the local news story

The mission of the Ohio Practitioners’ Network for Fathers and Families is to enhance the outcomes of children, families and communities by providing information, training and encouragement to father and family-serving practitioners.