A program started by TAP three years ago – Fathers First – hopes to grow in the future, with former participants demonstrating how the ten-week course has helped them to become better parents and partners. Fathers First held a recruiting event last week, where Rob Wormley – alias Fhat Rob – debuted a new hip-hop video he created about his own experience with Fathers First.
The program focuses on parenting and relationship skill building for fathers, and offers them help with resume building or other employment skills if they are looking for a job.
The theory there is that a gainfully employed father is better able to be in a healthy relationship with his children – or with the child’s mother. Those sessions include dressing for success, interviewing skills and financial stability – what do you do with your paychecks once they begin rolling in. The importance of checking and savings accounts are stressed; filling out checks and bill paying are topics as well.
Wormley – Fhat Rob – not only went through the program himself, he later mentored others as they went through the ten weeks – and then recently he became a full time employee at TAP (Total Action for Progress). Program manager Nick Kline said Fathers First arose from several other programs that TAP had in place; a 2011 grant from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services led to its debut in 2012.
Kline said three hours a week is split between parenting, relationships and job readiness classes over the ten-week period. “Our goal is to improve the lives of kids and the stability of families by focusing on the father figure. That’s dads with [or] without custody…pretty much anybody that plays a fatherly role in a child’s life.”
Fathers First also includes “date nights” where parents can step out without their children, and interactive sessions between fathers and their kids, “chances to do things together that they may not get to do on their own,” according to Kline. There’s also a yearly retreat where families go outside the valley to work on building family dynamics.
Fathers First has now graduated ten classes from those ten week programs since they debuted two years ago. Each one ends with a completion ceremony, “really celebrating the accomplishments and the road that they’re on now,” said Kline.
Fhat Rob filmed his video at TAP headquarters and showed it at a recruiting event last week. “He’s one of the biggest success stories we’ve had,” said Kline. A local production company called Engine’s Road put the video together with the artist.
Kline noted that other participants in Fathers First have done so well – demonstrating to others their growth as responsible fathers – that it has led to better custody arrangements and visitation rights – even full custody in some cases.
Wormley’s video was a novel way to spread the word about Fathers First, as opposed to something more traditional like a billboard or a bus ad, said Kline. “We kind of wanted to create a stir, a movement, in Roanoke.”
The program is also offered in Rockbridge and Alleghany Counties. Kline said the goal is simple, addressing the half of a parental equation that is sometimes overlooked: “Move the focus on to dads.”
By Gene Marrano
