MANSFIELD – Finding effective fatherhood initiatives in Richland County has proven to be a challenge in recent years, one that a group of community members hopes to tackle in the near future.
Organizations including the Mansfield Area Y, Richland Pregnancy Services, the Richland County Foundation, and Sen. Sherrod Brown’s office were present at a roundtable discussion on Friday morning to address the gap in fatherhood initiatives in Richland County, and how to move forward in a productive manner.
Julie Litt, coordinator of student services at the Richland County Early Childhood Center, and Terry Carter, coordinator of Mansfield’s First Call 211 service, hosted the event.
“This is about parenting,” Litt said. “We all know we’re not perfect at that, but that family connection for a child is all about mentorship.”
The discussion gave an update on current fatherhood initiatives in Richland County and their success rates, broke down what is working or not working within those programs, and prioritized areas needed to increase father engagement.
“This isn’t just the woman’s experience,” said Leah Jones, a representative for Sen. Sherrod Brown. “Too often it’s a story just about the woman.
“Do we talk about fathers?”
Bringing fathers into the discussion when it comes to pregnancy and having a baby was one challenge presented to the group. Too often, Jones said, fathers are not supported nor are they engaged or included in conversations about pregnancy and parenting, and the absence of a father can start to affect a child even before their birth.
“Infants with absent fathers were more likely to be born with lower birth weights, to be preterm, and be small for their gestational age,” she said.
According to Jones, the neonatal death rate of father-absent infants was nearly four times that of their counterparts with involved fathers, regardless of race or ethnicity. The risk of poor birth outcomes was highest for infants born to black women whose babies’ fathers were absent during their pregnancies.
“Even after adjusting for socioeconomic differences, these babies were seven times more likely to die in infancy than babies born to Hispanic and white women in the same situation,” Jones said.
In addition, obstetric complications contributing to premature births, such as anemia, chronic high blood pressure, eclampsia and placental abruption, were more prevalent among women whose babies’ fathers were absent during pregnancy. In Richland County, there were 12 infant deaths in the year 2016, five of which were attributed to premature birth.
The absence of fathers from the birth process is a cultural problem, said Tim Harless, director of community outreach at Richland County Children Services. It is also cyclical, as many of these men also did not have fathers while growing up.
“You lose the whole paternal side of the family tree,” Harless said. “A dad has to really fight to get the same opportunities a mother has.”
Harless was involved as an instructor for Daddy Boot Camps, a program born out of a partnership between OhioHealth Mansfield Hospital and Richland County DADS to help local dads-to-be learn the ropes of fatherhood from men who have successfully made the transition. Unfortunately, the program was discontinued due to lack of participation.
Another local fatherhood mentorship program is “Dad to Dad,” led by Dick Stedman, director of the Mens Ministry at Richland Pregnancy Services. The program reaches out to men who find themselves in an unplanned pregnancy by teaching them fathering and parenting skills, and has reached hundreds of men, according to Stedman.
The solution to fatherhood engagement will not come easy. For example, Litt pointed out that many challenges fathers face go hand-in-hand with the challenges of poverty in the city of Mansfield.
“There’s a whole world out there that we don’t see,” Harless added. “How do you raise a family on $10 an hour?”
Employment is another struggle, said Teresa Alt, executive director of Richland County Youth and Family Council. Alt said she knows of young men who are available for employment, but employers who won’t accept them.
“Kids haven’t changed, but our expectations of them have changed,” Alt said. “You have to have adults willing to mentor them in jobs so that they can succeed.”
Moving forward, the group made plans to meet again later in the year as well as recruit more members of the community to engage in leading and teaching new fathers in Richland County.
“We’ve just got to be there, and we can’t close our eyes to it,” Litt said. “I want to have opportunities in our communities where people know that someone cares.”
