Fatherhood conference teaches responsibility
By Daniel R. Brown
Of the St. Louis American
As part of its continuing effort to highlight the importance of responsible fatherhood, on Friday the Father’s Support Center hosted its Sixth Annual Fatherhood Conference in collaboration with New Beginnings C-Star. The focus of the day-long conference was “Attitudes and Issues of Adolescent Teen and Young Males Surrounding Fatherhood.”
Conference sponsors also included the Institute for Family Development, the Office of Minority Health and Sunset Mortgage-Grandview Plaza.
“The conference gives adolescent, teen and young adult males an opportunity to express their ideas in a safe environment,” said Charlotte Moten, of the Institute for Family Development.
“We have break-out sessions where we allow them to very candidly speak to the subjects that we are addressing in the conference, which include responsibilities of fatherhood, parenting, sexually transmitted diseases and substance-abuse prevention.”
Clarisa Cobb-Fritz, director of Community Support Services at New Beginnings C-Star, a not-for-profit organization that provides counseling to adolescents and adults who suffer from chemical dependency, said the conference directly addresses the issues faced by many of the young men she serves.
“A lot of guys are fathers. A lot of our guys have no concept about what it means to be a father,” said Cobb-Fritz.
“They are sexually active, and sometimes they are not sexually responsible. We don’t typically have a forum like this to discuss attitudes and perceptions as it relates to sexuality, sexual behavior, and responsibility in parenthood.”
During the open, roundtable discussion, the young man were encouraged to candidly discuss many of the issues that face young black men.
“I was not surprised at their openness, because I do this all the time,” said Chester Deans, a discussion group facilitator and director of Community Relations for the Father’s Support Center.
“Men have a tendency not to open up, but when they get in a circle where there is a common thread and a common interest and a common struggle, one man now knows and understands that he is not the only one that is doing this. They open up.”
The open format also gave the young men an opportunity to be taught by each other.
“Now, I have to go back and reflect about how I grew up, on how my father and my mother raised me, to try fix it, but to also take pride in the way I was raised to show my son how it’s going down,” said 22-year-old participant Cartavius McKinney.
“I hope the younger guys in there got a lot out of the discussion, so that they don’t make the mistakes that these older people are making out here. Hopefully, they will go back and tell their friends about the program and try to inform them about what’s going on, so they won’t make the same mistakes.”
Halbert Sullivan, executive director of Father’s Support Center and conference keynote speaker, explained why it is so important to teach young men about responsible parenting.
“We want them to understand that substance abuse is destroying our communities. We want them to also understand that as a young man they are a vital part of the community, and as a future father, they are one of the most important parts of our community,” Sullivan said.
“We want them to leave feeling powered. We want them to leave with high self esteem. We also want them to leave knowing that they will have a role to play in our community.”
Deans said, “I would hope that they learned from each other in terms of their attitudes and behaviors, to dispell some of the myths and misconceptions about life and use what we learned here to become more responsible.”
He continued, “If we get the information out to our children and keep nurturing them, they will become successful.”