The President’s Advisory council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships met March 9th to present the recommendations of six taskforces representing:

• Economic Recovery and Domestic Poverty;
• Environment and Climate Change;
• Fatherhood and Healthy Families;
• Global Poverty and Development;
• Inter-religious Cooperation; and
• Reform of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Follow this link for a PDF of the full report.

In regards to Fatherhood and Healthy Families the Council was charged to “develop recommendations for partnership and program opportunities that will strengthen the Administration’s commitment to promote fatherhood and the role of fathers in supporting healthy families.” The single overarching conviction that shaped the Taskforce’s deliberations was that: Responsible, engaged fathers are critical to the financial, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual well-being of children, and therefore to the strength and health of American families and communities.

The Taskforce presented the following 9 recommendations (begins on page 26 of the full report):

Recommendation 1: Convene quarterly White House Partnership Roundtables to encourage a broad variety of sectors, including private foundations and corporations, to form partnerships with existing fatherhood groups and experts to address specific areas in
which increased father involvement can strengthen the well-being of children in America.

Recommendation 2: Host an annual Father’s Day Celebration at the White House to honor exemplary fathers and to highlight advances in father involvement resulting from the Government’s interdepartmental working groups and the strategic partnerships formed at the quarterly roundtables.

Recommendation 3: Continue to personally affirm the important role of fathers, and continue to model the life of a committed husband and father.

Recommendation 4: Challenge government departments and agencies to cross departmental lines and create working groups to assess and address their policies that affect fathers’ involvement in the lives of children.

Recommendation 5: Increase participation of Federal agencies in the funding of fatherhood programming, especially in areas of critical importance.

Recommendation 6: Invest in high-quality program evaluation in order to help the fatherhood field define and increase its impact on specific measures and in so doing, increase public understanding of and support for this critical work.

Recommendation 7: Develop fatherhood tools and products that are culturally and linguistically relevant.

Recommendation 8: Engage the academic community in developing curricula to train aspiring health and human service professionals to better meet the needs of fathers.

Recommendation 9: Ensure that programming for couples’ employment training, job placement, and financial literacy are allowable activities under federally funded fatherhood, healthy relationship, and healthy marriage grants.

Anyone working for the improved well-being of children by focusing on fathers must be encouraged by these recommendations and the proposed Fatherhood, Marriage and Families Innovation Fund that is a part of the President’s budget submitted to congress.* Follow this link for information on the National Fatherhood Leaders Group April 1, 2010 webinar on the President’s budget and emerging fatherhood priorities, transitional jobs and TANF Reauthorization.

David Gray, Director of the New America Foundation’s Workforce and Family Program, points out that glaringly missing from the recommendations is anything that specifically has to do with workplace flexibility: flexibility in how workers get their work done well while meeting their responsibilities as caregivers, parents, including community involvement, personal well being, et cetera. This may not be totally off of the radar screen however, it could very well be a part of the roundtable suggested in recommendation one. Contributing to my thinking that work-life fit isn’t totally off the table is the fact that the day following the recommendations release Commerce Secretary Gary Locke participated in a Regional Fatherhood Forum co-sponsored by the Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships and the Department of Commerce in Oakland, CA. The Forum discussion topics included engaging father in promoting work/family balance practices. I only wish we could loose the image of “balance” when talking about meeting work and family expectations and demands. I much prefer the more realistic image of work-life fit or navigating work and family.

Work-life fit has become an important and necessary focus for both women and men. A 2008 study by the Families and Work Institute indicates that men in dual career couples now report one third greater work-life conflict than women.

We are living in the best of times and the worst of times when it comes to fathers and children – best of times because dads who are engaged with their children are engaged in a much more wholistic and complete manner than what we have traditional seen in generations past, the worst of times because father-absence is far greater than it has ever been. It would appear that this administration is committed to facilitating a change and to that I say a hearty “Hear! Hear!”

* The Budget also includes $500 million for a new Fatherhood, Marriage, and Families Innovation Fund. The fund will provide competitive grants to States to conduct and rigorously evaluate comprehensive responsible fatherhood programs, including those that incorporate healthy marriage components and demonstrations geared towards improving child outcomes by improving outcomes for custodial parents with serious barriers to self sufficiency as a mechanism for improving outcomes for children in these families.