Responsible Fatherhood/Healthy Marriage
Too many children live in communities where a large number of families are absent of fathers. This situation that places kids at great risk and requires single mothers to do the job of two parents. It also allows for an increasing number of father-age men who are unattached to their kids, families, communities, and the world of work.
Single parents -- especially young mothers -- with only one income face great challenges in their efforts to raise successful, financially secure kids. Our desire to help reverse this trend has led us, in recent years, to make investments aimed at advancing a national movement to promote the importance and benefits of responsible fatherhood and grants that promote marriage and the formation of two-parent families.
Investments in responsible fatherhood are driven by our belief that children are better off when their fathers receive encouragement and support to acknowledge paternity of their kids. They must learn how to have respectful relationship with their children’s mothers. They need access to opportunities to provide ongoing financial support for their families. They also must become actively involved in caring for and raising their children.
We promote these ideas through by providing practitioners and policymakers with the best available information, tools, and program models. We make grants to further the national fatherhood campaigns that have successfully put this issue on public policy agendas.
Casey Funding in Action
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Our grant to the Baltimore-based Center for Fathers, Families and Workforce Development will enable this group to provide an innovative marriage education and service program to 50 couples expecting children. This program, which is part of a larger federally funded multi-year, multi-city research effort. The results will be captured and shared with a wide group of practitioners, community leaders, and policy makers.
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Our support for initiatives of Rhode Island Child Support, Corrections, and the Family Life Center, has led to weekly visits to the facility by child support staff that help fathers deal with issues of paternity establishment and arrearages. Prior to, and immediately after these fathers’ from South Providence return to the community, the three organizations work closely to ensure that social services available, including temporary housing, employment training and job placement, health care, and domestic and substance abuse counseling.
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Casey’s support of the Georgia Department of Human Resources fatherhood initiatives has helped child support officials maintain a network of 36 fatherhood programs across the state.These programs are responsible for serving more than 2,000 fathers each year. They provide job training and placement, temporary housing, emergency clothing, transportation to employment, rent and utility assistance, family counseling, and legal services to men who have demonstrated a sincere interest in providing financial support and being involved in their children’s lives.
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