THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 18, 1996 TAG: 9603180035
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
Virginia has declared a public-health problem: the growing number of fatherless homes. It also has prescribed a treatment: the first state-funded, statewide campaign promoting the role of male parents.
To that end, Virginia this month awarded a $200,000 contract to the National Fatherhood Initiative, a non-profit advocacy group based in Lancaster, Pa., to conduct the Virginia Fatherhood Campaign of publicity and community forums this year.
``This is the first time that a governor has said, `I want to inundate this state with messages of the importance of fathers,'' said Wade F. Horn, the NFI's director.
Horn and his National Fatherhood Initiative have been at the forefront of a renewed national focus on fathers and their roles in a society awash in divorces, unwed pregnancies and children growing up with only mothers at home.
Calling fatherlessness a ``national crisis,'' the NFI collects statistics and studies showing social ills exacerbated by absent fathers, such as juvenile crime, teenage pregnancies and poor school performance.
Last year, the organization sponsored The National Fatherhood Tour of forum-rallies in 30-plus cities across the country as well as a National Summit on Fatherhood in Dallas at which Vice President Al Gore spoke.
In Virginia, the state Health Department last summer produced a 100-page report on ``Fatherhood and Family Health,'' and discovered that problems linked statistically with fatherlessness across the nation exist here as well.
James W. Bailey, a senior health educator with the Health Department and a coordinator of the Virginia Fatherhood Campaign, said studies suggest there's inadequate social development when fathers aren't around to be role models for boys or counselors for girls.
Nationally, the number of children growing up without fathers jumped from 5.8 million in 1960 to more than 20 million in 1994, Bailey said.
Virginia ranks just below the national average for families with children and only one parent, at 22.2 percent; children living in homes with no male present, at 15.1 percent; and children living in neighborhoods where more than half the families are headed by women alone, at 6.1 percent, according to the 1995 Kids Count Data Book published by Baltimore-based The Annie E. Casey Foundation, a child-advocacy group.
The Virginia Fatherhood Campaign plans a media publicity barrage beginning in May, followed by four forums in May and June - tentatively set for Norfolk, Richmond, Harrisonburg and Northern Virginia - where civic, church, business, education and government leaders will be invited to discuss ways to promote and support effective fathering, Horn said.
They want to go beyond identifying problems and come up with local answers, he added.
``We've been successful in just promoting the dialogue of fatherhood. And that's basically our goal,'' said Matthew D. Buckwalter, the Virginia media campaign manager for the NFI. ``The best solutions are offered by people from the communities who know their communities.''
Horn cited as an example a ``Boot Camp for New Dads'' in some California hospitals, where fathers bring in their 2- to 3-month-old infants, talk to expectant fathers and show them how to hold and diaper the babies.
No nurses, no social workers - ``It's men talking to men,'' Horn said. ``It does two things: It transmits skills to expectant fathers. And it builds up self-esteem in these fathers of 2- and 3-month-olds. . . . What does it cost? Very little.''
A local organization with a similar name and goals welcomes the effort, but questions its effectiveness.
``I think that's a very positive step,'' said R. Michael Ewing, who heads the Virginia Fatherhood Initiative in Chesapeake. ``I guess I'm a little bit skeptical how well it would work, because we have some deeply embedded notions within the legislature and the legislative community that fathers are superfluous figures.
``I'm not sure whether a brief campaign like this can change their minds.''
``Ultimately,'' said the NFI's Buckwalter, ``our No. 1 priority is the welfare of the kids. All too often that's overlooked.
``We're not a father's-rights organization. We sympathize with some of their concerns, but I want to reiterate here that our interest is in the welfare of the children.'' by CNB