In Rochester, collaborations are enhancing fathers’ roles in their children’s lives

	Since 1996, through the generosity of the Annie E. Casey, Danforth, Ford, and Charles Stewart Mott foundations, the Coalition of Community Foundations for Youth has seeded activity around the importance of fathers in more than 60 communities with grants to support Father’s Day events, best practices, policy innovation, and school, family, and community partnerships.
	for more information… J. K. Nsaa DESIGNER AND WEBMASTER 500 East Avenue Rochester, NY 14607-1912 716-271-4271 jknsaa@racf.org www.racf.org

The scenes on the screen are familiar ones—“Father Knows Best,” “Cosby,” “Ozzie and Harriet”—icons of American fatherhood. Less familiar is the scene in the auditorium, where scores of men have assembled to critique these fathering styles and reflect on the role and importance of fathers in the lives of their children. This is Hollywood Dads, just one of the dozens of community-wide rallies, lectures, picnics, prayer services and other events that are part of the Rochester (NY) area’s fourth annual, two-week celebration of fatherhood.

Building on Strengths and Mission
When Rochester Area Community Foundation (RACF) launched its Father’s Day activities in 1996 with the help of a $1,000 grant from the Coalition of Community Foundations for Youth, it was building on a tradition of support for early childhood and parenting issues through community partnerships.

“The context made sense for us,” explains Jennifer Leonard, RACF’s president and executive director. “CCFY brought to our attention the need to look separately at the needs of young, low-income fathers.” For RACF, father engagement work fit another foundation objective. As a Ford Foundation Changing Communities, Changing Needs grantee, the foundation saw working on fatherhood issues as an opportunity to reach more diverse audiences.

Sparking a Movement
RACF’s convening efforts around the first year’s Father’s Day celebration brought together more than a dozen organizations working to increase fathers’ involvement in the lives of their children. “The groups were thrilled to learn about one another and wanted to stay together in some form,” according to J. K. Nsaa, who facilitated the project as one of RACF’s program officers. That enthusiasm and common purpose led a core group of nine organizations to form Rochester Fathers’ Collaborative. Dedicated to improving the availability of services for fathers, the Collaborative meets monthly to share information and resources, serves as a clearinghouse and single point of entry for fathers seeking services, and organizes Rochester’s annual Celebrating Fatherhood activities.

Setting a Community Priority
Recognizing the need to move forward in the policy arena, RACF used a $10,000 Fathers Matter Initiative grant and local resources to apply to fatherhood issues a community planning and strategy development model that it had used successfully to address early child education policy. Some 30 agencies, including service providers, funders, legal and advocacy organizations, have participated. Out of this process has come a strategic plan, a “Fathers Matter” video, a survey of fathers, internal examination by the participating institutions of their attitudes and practices toward promoting paternal engagement, and better coordination of activities among the participants.

Changing Community and Institutional Expectations
Ultimately, father involvement rests with fathers, with the support of mothers, kin and the community at large. With a Best Practices grant, RACF and its father-friendly partners are working to raise the community’s expectations of father involvement and helping fathers—and schools, courts and service organizations—realize the positive impact their involvement can exert upon healthy child development. Key to this is helping agencies recognize institutional biases that close fathers out of their children’s lives.

Deepening the initiative’s work with the professional community, RACF sponsored a“ best practices” seminar in March 1999 for service providers, educators, family practice attorneys, and policymakers. “Change agents” within 40 key agencies and organizations can now implement positive paternal involvement within their agencies.

To reach the general public, in June 1999, the Ad Council is launching a print and broadcast campaign stressing fathers’ positive contributions to their children’s development.

Lessons Learned
For RACF, success has rested in letting the community—and fathers—take responsibility in all phases of the initiative. Thanks to this approach, the messages and strategies have been internalized. “All participants have changed,” observes Nsaa. “We are gratified to see the initiative taking root in the community.”