Becoming a father is easy; being one is a whole different story.
Stories of kids with involved fathers tend to have much happier endings, and yet an estimated 18 million kids — one in four — grow up with an absent father.
It’s an epidemic that has been receiving increased attention in recent years, and one that a Key West program aims to alleviate.
Billy Davis spent more than 20 years helping troubled kids in Key West. Today, he’s helping their fathers, armed with research that shows the generational links of absentee fathers.
“Father absence creates a void that becomes a devastating inheritance, for too many children who grow up fatherless are fated to perpetuate the cycle,” states a state-run Fathers and Families program in South Carolina, one of hundreds of fatherhood initiatives that have launched in the U.S., including in the Keys.
Davis launched the Southernmost Fatherhood Initiative in 2019 and recently obtained additional funding to enhance the program and reach more fathers.
The free program provides supportive training for dads, including incarcerated ones, to develop new skills in parent, co-parent and child relationships.
“The most important ‘job’ a person with children has is parenting, but many take on the role without understanding what good, positive parenting actually looks like,” Davis said, ticking off some of the program’s takeaways:
- Improved communication with the children and their mother.
- Recognition of a heated conversation that will benefit from a timeout to revisit the issue.
- Acknowledging each child’s differences and understanding that parenting isn’t one-size-fits-all.
- Understanding one’s own limitations as a dad.
The initiative recognizes that helping men become better fathers simultaneously helps their children — with education, behavior, self-esteem and stability.
“We know the statistics — that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison,” then-President Barack Obama said in a 2008 speech. “They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.”
But how is a man who grew up without a father supposed to know how to be a father?
That’s where Davis comes in. He wants the Southernmost Fatherhood Initiative to reach men in jail, prison, the court system and child support offices.
Incarcerated fathers can begin the 12-week program via Zoom before they’re released. Upon completion, they received a $150 gift card to Publix, which enables them to contribute concretely to their children’s well-being.
Additional resources include job placement, often with Waste Management, with other local employers coming on board. Davis also helps fathers catch up on child support payments, renew driver’s licenses and eventually find housing.
“I’m also planning to meet with local judges, who hopefully will be able to recommend the fatherhood program as an alternative to jail in some cases,” Davis said, adding that he is also working with a local real estate group, the Watkins Group, to identify potential investors to purchase properties in Key West that will then be rented to fatherhood participants who are monitored and counseled.
“We’ll provide case management, oversight and support services,” he said. “We’re really trying to offer a chance to be present in their kids’ lives, while also benefiting themselves. And in the meantime, we’re breaking the cycle of absent fathers, because more often than not, kids who grow up without a father end up becoming absent fathers themselves.”
The Southernmost Fatherhood Initiative is a program of the nonprofit A Positive Step of Monroe County. For more information, visit apsmc.org.
