ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 7, 1996 TAG: 9612090045
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
NEWLY RELEASED INMATES enter the program, which provides support, encouragement and insight into parenting for struggling fathers.
Every Thursday, Dennis Leftwich meets with a group of men, all fathers.
They talk about their jobs, their social lives, the day's ups and downs.
And they talk about their children - how they want to be part of their children's lives.
Leftwich, of Roanoke, has a 4-year-old daughter. He said he always depended on others to care for her - in part because he was in and out of prison. The child spent much of her time with her mother, Leftwich's girlfriend.
The girlfriend died last year of cancer, Leftwich said. But he was not around to step in and care for his daughter.
He was in Pulaski Correctional Center, serving the second half of a 27-month sentence for possession of stolen goods
"It tore me up," Leftwich, 42, said. "I couldn't do nothing for my daughter. I was locked up. There wasn't much I could do."
But Leftwich started participating in a program while in prison offered by Total Action Against Poverty VA CARES - an acronym for Virginia Community Action Re-Entry Systems - that helps inmates ease back into life after their release.
In November, after his release, Leftwich entered VA CARES' new fatherhood program. It is designed to provide support, encouragement and insight into fatherhood to fathers who are struggling with parenting after incarceration, said Rosana Anderson, TAP VA CARES director.
Participants meet once a week in a support-group setting at TAP's downtown Roanoke offices. They work with fatherhood "mentors" and listen to good father role models talk about their relationships with their children.
"It teaches me what I have to do to get this relationship, the steps I have to make," Leftwich said. "I want to learn how to raise my child, to be a father to her, to teach her the right things. I wasn't used to doing that before."
The program is funded by a $7,500 grant from the Virginia Fatherhood Campaign, an initiative unveiled in June by Gov. George Allen. The campaign aims to improve the quality of relationships between fathers and their children.
The campaign received $200,000 in funding for this year and $200,000 for 1997. Allen, as part of his announcement this week that he was stepping up the state welfare-to-work plan's timetable, said he would submit budget amendments that would provide $200,000 to continue the campaign in 1998.
TAP VA CARES recognized fathers who are participating in the fatherhood program at its annual "Father-Child" banquet Friday. The banquet's theme - as it has been for four years - was "You are somebody's hero."
Leftwich could not be there. His afternoon-into-evening job as a restaurant dishwasher - a job he found through TAP VA CARES - prevented him from attending.
He said he wanted to go. He wanted his daughter to go with him.
Leftwich is trying to get custody of her. She now is living temporarily with a close friend of her mother's, he said.
He has a court custody hearing scheduled for Dec.19.
"They keep telling me I might not get her the first time, but I won't give up hope," Leftwich said. "I'll just keep striving.
"It's time for me to take on responsibility."
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