NASW Social Work Talks - EP100: Empowering Men To Be Better Fathers

Episode Date: April 4, 2023

We speak with Dr. Charles Daniels Jr, PhD, MDiv, LICSW , co-founder and CEO of Fathers' Uplift in Dorchester, Massachusetts.  Fathers' UpLift provides mental health counseling, coaching, advocacy, and resource support to assist fathers with overcoming barriers — including racism, emotional, traumatic, and addiction-based barriers — that prevent them from remaining engaged in their children's lives. Dr. Daniels has spent the last decade providing therapy to Black men, helping them overcome the effects of toxic masculinity, racism, and oppression. He has taught at Harvard University and Simmons University and has appeared on numerous television and radio programs. Visit the show notes for related resources.

This episode is sponsored by Connect to End COVID-19. Welcome to Social Work Talks. My name is Greg Wright, and on this episode, we're going to have a conversation about social work and fatherhood and how social workers can support fathers. Our guest today is Dr. Charles Daniels, co-founder and CEO of Fathers Uplift in Massachusetts. Welcome to Social Work Talks, Dr. Daniels. How are you? Doing well, doing well. Thank you for having me. Looking forward to the conversation. Yep, absolutely. So how did you get interested in fatherhood and the role of social workers in helping fathers in the first place?

Well, I grew up without my father, so I experienced a lot of the issues that children that do not have fathers in the household experience, from substance use to challenges of mental health and substance use. That was me. So, you know, when I got to school, Seminary School of Social Work, I had an opportunity to do a fellowship. And then when I did my fellowship, I met this group of dads who were absent from their kids' lives. And they taught me all about what it is that fathers feel who are absent from their kids' lives. So what I thought I knew about fathers, I didn't know what was going on. And what I thought I knew was that fathers didn't love their kids when they were absent.

But what these dads taught me is that fathers love their children despite being absent. And there are challenges that prevent them from being in their kids' lives. So that's the origin of why I'm doing the work here. Yeah. So could you tell me a bit more about the group that you, like, met with? Like, were these, like, social work professors? Were they your, like, friends? Who were these fathers that you met? Yeah, so I had a fellowship, $3,000 fellowship to do a community project, and I chose fathers.

So these dads were dads at a sober hostel at the Deming Community Health Center, and all of them were absent currently because of substance use and poverty, but also there was a lot of shame there. They didn't know how to pick up the phone after not seeing their kids for a couple years, right? So that's a challenge that, you know, picking up the phone is a huge challenge, right? But, you know, when you think about how light a phone is, you don't think how hard it is to actually pick it up. If you haven't seen your kids in a long time, it's extremely difficult. So those are the days that taught me all about fatherhood. Yeah, so, like, in our society, motherhood is, like, played up more. um mother's day is i think a bigger um holiday than father's day is look i'm a father um on

mother's day you know take them out to like eat gifts i might get like a pair of socks if i'm lucky so does um our society kind of like downplay the role of fathers and also how important are fathers in a child's development absolutely i would say yes society has downplayed the role of fathers, especially fathers of color. You know, I think when we look at the history of slavery, we also look at the history of parents being separated from their kids. I mean, there's a lot of trauma there, right? So when you think about the media, the role that it plays in fathers being asked from

their kids' lives, there's a huge role. I can say that society is becoming a little bit more compassionate over the years, more compassionate than they ever were. I do see progress in that regard. Nonetheless, we still have a lot of work to do. When you look at child support policies, we still have a lot of work to do. When you look at the child welfare department and how they treat, mistreat black and brown fathers at an alarming rate. When it comes to, you know, why fathers are important, we see it in the research.

You know, fathers contribute to the positive educational outcomes of their children. We also see that when a father is involved, you know, the child is less likely to have behavioral issues, engaged in substances, mental health-related issues. A father's presence is transformative, not just for the child, but it's generationally transformative. And that's what we see in the research. Yeah. So if we look at our child welfare system and how it treats men and also men who are like black or like brown, what are the inequities that you have seen there? Oh, my God. It's so much. It's so much. I think the child welfare system is deeply embedded in that traditional masculine way of looking and viewing fathers.

And there's already this perception of what a man should be doing. Just like with child support, there's already a perception of what a man should be doing. He should be paying his child support bill or he should have his house. He should be doing this, this and that to have access to his children in the child welfare department. But those unrealistic expectations are not reachable for a lot of fathers who lack adequate resources, opportunities, and things of that nature. So it seems like, you know, you've been set up to fail when you don't necessarily have those opportunities or even know how to navigate challenges associated with fatherhood. So, yes, I think there's still an archaic way of viewing men, which really challenges them with being able to be in their kids' lives. Yes. So in other words, the system is like focused more on a materialistic end of fatherhood and like not the emotional support that a father may provide.

Absolutely. I think that's overall what issue that we're seeing in society as it relates to fathers, you know, emotional is secondary to what it is you provide and do for another person. And fathers learn that when they become fathers for the first time. Some common things that you hear from family members, from relatives, hey, you need to take care of the child and the parent that's bearing the child. Right. Everything else is secondary. Work, get that money and make sure your children are taken care of. But what about you? You don't really get much information about what you need to do for yourself. Yes. So you have an organization that's called Fathers Uplift. I want you to talk to us about what was the idea for creating that and how many folks are you serving now? Yeah, the idea, you know, came from me and my wife, who is the co-founder and a clinical social worker herself.

My father, she had her father. My father made her feel as if she was a princess while she was in Haiti and her father was in Florida. And she was inspired by the fact that fathers could be engaged in a kid's lives, even though they're a thousand miles away. So she takes the experience of having a positive part of her life, and she brings it to her work. On the flip side, I didn't have my dad really navigate a lot of those challenges that children experience where they don't have their fathers. A good portion of children experience that do not have their fathers. So we came together to really figure out how can we support dads who are struggling to be the fathers they've always dreamed of being. We both say that no father dreams of being a dad beat when he's a kid, and that's true.

I'm awake, I'm awake, I'm a grown man being a dad beat until my children not be present. And know if I wouldn't solicit that child for the first time to fix that. Engage in NASW's National Connect to End COVID-19 campaign today. It's a CDC-funded initiative to support social workers and their clients in informed vaccine decision-making. NASW and the NASW Foundation are partnering with the University of Texas at Austin Steve Hicks School of Social Work to provide national webinars, chapter trainings, tools, and information that promote vaccine confidence among social workers and equip them to support clients in informed vaccine decision-making.

Visit NASW's website to learn more and join the campaign. Yeah, so what kind of services are offered there? And is your staff all social workers, or are there, like, other professions mixed in? What is your team looking like, in other words? Yeah. So, annually, we serve over 1,000 men and families, direct services. That doesn't include what we do externally, through other avenues,

training, social workers, unengaged fathers. That number has amplified dramatically. Since I existed, we've served over 12,000 men and families through various functions. In terms of the breakdown of our group of people that work for us, they're social workers, but they're also peer-to-peer. They're peer service workers as well. We have a lot of fathers that graduate our program, and they end up becoming a team member, supporting fathers that are experiencing similar challenges as they experience. Yeah, so.

I'm sorry. Oh, no, no, no. I'm sorry. Are your services only in the Massachusetts area, or are you also extending those trainings out nationally? Absolutely. So currently, you know, the clinic directly, we're providing therapy to father men and families in Massachusetts, but we do have a national jobbing group for fathers nationally where it occurs every Tuesday at 4 o'clock via Zoom and fathers everywhere can come and join in and get support that they need. We also have a national fund for fathers supporting them with any issues that they may have related to child welfare, court fees, and fathers, regardless of their location, could take advantage of that fund. So we have different services that are geared towards fathers locally and nationally. And kicking off in the fall, we have a therapist recruitment fellowship that will be available to students nationally who are in graduate school, preparing them to be future therapists in the field, serving their families.

Yeah, so I was wondering if you could give me a scenario of your, like, typical client, like, I mean, and I know that, you know, everyone's, like, different. Everyone has a different story, a different background. But, like, tell me about a case of a person, a father who walked in. What were the issues that that person, like, faced? And how did your organization help them? Yeah. So I'll give you one dramatic issue. Very dramatic, but also very painful for this father. So he adopted this child.

He was adopted by the father. Adopted this child. he was his child. Someone called and made a false allegation against him that wasn't true. He ended up having to go to court. He ended up having to wear an ankle monitor. Also, he ended up on the verge of losing his job over these false allegations. He also lost his child who ended up in foster care due to these allegations. So when we think about the challenge, that was the challenge. There's a false allegation against me. I lost a child that I love of, who's mine, that I raised, and I want him back, right?

So much of how we supported him was through advocacy, but also through therapy, right? You know, validating him, but also supporting him with navigating these challenges and getting the court to overturn the case, which eventually occurred. They overturned the case. They realized that these were false allegations, and now he's with his son again, who was taken away from him because of these false allegations. And you know who was involved? Child welfare and the legal system.

So the point we're navigating that was what we were able to do. And a lot of our constituents have child welfare involvement, and they have histories of incarceration and trauma. And most likely, they're Black men. So that's something to do with our population. Yeah, so, I mean, if a father is incarcerated, does your organization help them maintain a tie in any way with their children? Yeah, but here's the thing. You know, maternal gatekeeping is real big in our community, right? You know, if you have men going in and out of prison and jail, there's a lot of distrust.

And the majority of work is geared towards getting the family to let down that guard so we can maintain those relationships. But that part takes a lot of time before we even get to the piece with fathers being engaged in their kids' lives. Yes. So if you look at the makeup of the social work profession, it's about 70% female. and um i was wondering um how can you advise um a female like social worker um to be more like sensitive to um an issue that a father is like facing because i mean we all have um our biases and um a lot of times they're um in a conscious bias so you might like act toward a person in a way without even like thinking of it i know that um our um association we really do um a lot um of

training on the issue of cultural uh competency but like how can you like use that to help black and brown fathers though i think the core of that is to really start off with their relationship with their father and the man in their life typically the nature of their relationship will play off in their work in the field. So that's where we start. We really unwrap, and they have to grapple with that, right? What is my expectation of men in my life? And also, what is the trauma that I've experienced

from men in my life at present? And that's a piece that they have to spend a lot of time on before they actually do the real work. Yeah, gotcha. Well, look, I want to thank you for being our guest. And as a final question, um as far as how our society treats like fathers um if you could have like a wish of how like things should be in like 15 years or 20 years even where do you want us to like be then

yeah you know i really want father to have the opportunity to define the type of father that they want to be and for a lot of these systems to be okay with that definition of what the father they want to be. I think that's the hard part. Getting the system to be okay with that and meeting them where they are. That's the hard piece. And I hope that there's no longer an issue in 15 to 20 years. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. This is Dr. Charles Daniels. He is the co-founder and CEO of Fathers Uplift in Massachusetts. Thank you for being our guest on Social Work

Talks, Doctor. Thank you. I appreciate it. You have been listening to NASW Social Work Talks, a production of the National Association of Social Workers. We encourage you to visit NASW's website for more information about our efforts to enhance the professional growth and development of our members, to create and maintain professional standards, and to advance sound social policies. You can learn more at www.socialworkers.org. Don't forget to subscribe to NASW Social Work Talks wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for joining us. We look forward to seeing you next episode.