Hello,

You may have followed the blog entries written here by Rich Batten.  I am sorry to report, for those that followed his thoughts and ideas, that Rich has taken a job of national scope with Public Strategies.   He is now the project manager for the National Healthy Marriage Resource Center.

Beginning today, I will attempt to give this blog some life again.  My name is Dan Welch and my journey to this point in time as been one made purely without planning.  I graduated from college with degrees in history and philosophy, with some notion that a degree in my back pocket may someday help me.  I suppose that came true when I applied to work for a job with the Colorado Department of of Labor and Employment and ended up working for them for 10 years, largely in the capacity of working with job seekers and employers to seek and/or feel job vacancies.

Then, 20 years ago, I applied for a position for the state Child Support Enforcement (CSE) program.  Not really even knowing what was all involved.  What I found was fascinating.  To shorten this introduction, let me just say I became the state CSE grant manager and that included demonstration grants to improve child support outcomes, which led to the realization that not all dads are "dead beats" but rather "dead broke".  So, programs were born from the grants that allowed for collaborations with the Department of Corrections, improving access and visitation processes for dads, to arrears forgiveness programs and even creating father programs with the main intent of creating a voice for fathers and educating fathers about the complexity of CSE.

Most recently I worked two years administering the CSE program for southern Wyoming, and finding the work of changing attitudes towards fathers was again a major challenge for me. 

Luckily, for me, I was able to come back to our beautiful state and work again for the state and in a role I firmly believe in through my years with CSE.

I hope to share more of this journey moving forward, and of my thoughts and those of others that I have seen formulated over the years.

Thank you,

Dan

Happy Father’s Day and Congratulation to our 2010 Be There for Your Kids 2010 Award winners! (Pictured left to right at the pregame of the June 18th Rockies game - Ken Sanders, Linda Kempe - Fatherhood Support Services, Kevin Crumley, Kendie & Kendall Davis) 

Kevin Crumley – Father of the Year (follow this link for Bill Johnson’s column in The Denver Post on Kevin 

Fatherhood Support Services – Program of the Year (follow this link for FSI’s website) 

Kendall Davis – Outstanding Father Reengagement Award 

Ken Sanders – Fatherhood Practitioner of the Year (Click here to read a profile on The Center on Fathering in the September 2009 issue of The Face of Fatherhood in Colorado. Ken is the Center’s Director)

Terry Spindler – Colorado Fatherhood Council Member of the Year 

I was also awarded Outstanding Leader of the Year, in part because as of the beginning of this month I have transitioned to a new role. After helping to establish the Colorado Fatherhood Initiative I have accepted a position with the Denver office of Public Strategies Inc. as the project manager for the National Healthy Marriage Resource Center which includes the website twoofus.org. 

It has been a joy to work with men and women across state working to improve child wellbeing through father involvement. I’m convinced that Colorado is well positioned to continue their great work for dads and I will continue to do all that I can to support that endeavor.

In an interview that will be published in June I was asked, "What do you feel is the most important thing a father can provide for his child?"

How would you answer? My response might have been different twenty years ago and may well be different twenty years from now (my kids are approaching 23, 21, 19 and 17) but this is how I responded today.

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I’ve been a follower of Mark Brady’s blog, The Committed Parent: Translating social neuroscience to help parents raise kids we can live with and we’re crazy about, for some time. In a recent post, Wiring the Brain for Wisdom, Brady cites research that identifies compassion, self-understanding, morality and emotional stability as some of the cornerstones of wisdom. He then expounds upon his belief in the importance of social neuroscience and the heart and brain connection in regards to wisdom. He also mentions the cultivation of learned fearlessness, and includes Princeton philosophy professor and social critic, Cornel West as someone who he believes demonstrates “learned fearlessness with deep roots planted early in his heart.” – Brady began his post with a quote by West on President Obama.

What does this have to do with the title of this post, “Be there for them”?

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We may be a fatherhood site but one of our best-kept secrets is our page for moms! Follow this link for almost 20 interactive websites for moms including Mile High Mommas, Moms Like Me, and Amazing Moms.

I also encourage you to check out New York Times Magazine contributing writer, Lisa Belkin’s blog: Motherlode – Adventures in Parenting, the podcasts of the dynamic mother-daughter duo of Marti and Erin Erickson at Good Enough Moms and our own Colorado Parent Online Magazine.

An old Swahili proverb says, Penzi la mama tamu, haliishi hamu (Mother's love is so sweet that you never have enough of it.) May our children know and live in the security and sweetness of a mother’s love.

We are accepting nominations for the 2010 Be There for Your Kids Awards. This year’s winners will be honored during the pre-game ceremony of the June 18th Rockies game. Nominations are due May 15.

Last year’s winners included:
Jerome Perkins (pictured on the far right) – Fatherhood Practitioner of the Year - Jerome is the administrator of Christlife Ministries in Pueblo. Christlife Ministries focuses mentoring fathers in prison to connect with their children on the inside while also preparing them for a lasting relationship with their family when they are released.

Joel Webster (Pictured on the right with Governor Bill Ritter) – Father of the Year – Joel and his wife Bridget are parents to 13-year-old Michael and 9-year-old Haley. Joel rose from the ashes so to speak . . . after spending part of his childhood in foster care and being homeless for a short period of time, Joel demonstrated a tremendous commitment to getting his life in order and eventually married and became the kind of dad his step son and biological daughter need him to be. Joel broke a negative cycle and has replaced it with powerful presence of courage, nurturance, and hope.

You probably know someone deserving of a Be There Award. Nominees must be a resident of Colorado and fall into one of the following eight categories:

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Norman Maclean learned the discipline, grace and rhythm of life fly-fishing with his Scottish Presbyterian father. I learned it doing windows for Mesdames (I understand that’s the plural form of Mrs.) Tracy, Smith and Lake with my Easter and Christmas only Methodist dad of Scandinavian and British descent.

If spring was in the air, so was the commingled aroma of dusty old screens and WindexTM. Mesdames Tracy, Smith and Lake were all widows who attended the Methodist Church in our small Michigan town of 1200 or so. Although he wasn’t much for the Sunday sermon and offering he was one for works of service and I, as his first born and only son, got to come along.

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Our sons will become men. The question is what kind and when. Masculinity, what we expect from men, is a cultural concept. Joe Ehrmann, “head coach” of Coach for America believes that our society does a terrible job of teaching boys how to become men. Joe’s assessment is that the standard criteria of athletic ability, sexual conquest and economic success create a false masculinity that sets men up for failure. It produces a compare and compete mentality that leaves most men feeling isolated and alone.

More and more men are recognizing the emptiness of such pursuits but often it takes the unselfish love of another who is willing to peel away the façade and tenaciously pursue a man’s heart to open them up to the possibility of change. As an introduction to the theme of his book, Wrestling with Love: How men struggle with intimacy with women, children, parents, and each other, Samuel Osherson insightfully recalls a scene from The Wizard of Oz.

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Everything was wrong. The antiseptic smells, the bedside table, the pull around curtain and the pajamas. I had never seen my grandfather in pajamas. I had never seen him so thin and so helpless. He was always the strong one with big hands, a big smile and a high-pitched laugh. There in the assisted living facility not only was he out of his environment but he wanted to rid himself of life itself. He was being redefined in ways he couldn’t fathom or believe.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Oh how I wanted to inject those words of Dylan Thomas into his veins and restore the strong man I knew in my youth and childhood.

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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):

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