FFCA Conference Attendees

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. James C. Rodríguez, MSW, CADC
President & CEO
Fathers and Families Coalition of America

On December 9, I participated in a virtual convening hosted by the City of New York—Fatherhood in Focus—in partnership with the Department of Youth & Community Development, the Children's Cabinet, the Human Resources Administration, and the Administration for Children's Services. The intention of the gathering was clear: to move beyond surface-level conversation and take an honest look at what it truly takes to strengthen families by meaningfully engaging fathers.

There were several hundred professionals on Zoom that Tuesday afternoon. Researchers. Direct service providers. Administrators. Policy leaders. Practitioners with lived experience. Yet only 55 participants responded to the live polling questions embedded throughout the session.

That number matters.

Not because it weakens the data, but because it may illuminate something deeper. Ambivalence.

Ambivalence, in my experience, is often one of the most underexamined drivers of why we, as a society, struggle to move the needle on outcomes we all say we care about: child well-being, family stability, community safety, and economic mobility. When participation is optional, engagement is passive, and responsibility is diffused across systems, progress slows. And so, this small data set—55 respondents from a two-hour virtual conference—becomes less about scale and more about signal.

Fatherhood in Focus: A Brief Recap

The session opened with a fireside conversation between me and Joseph T. Jones Jr., followed by a panel that included senior staff from DYCD-funded fatherhood programs and leadership from Metropolitan College of New York. Participating organizations included United Activities Unlimited, Forestdale, Youth Justice Network, and Metropolitan College of New York.

Breakout discussions centered on five critical areas:

Young and expectant fathers
Fathers involved in the child welfare system
Fathers entering or reentering the workforce
Fathers impacted by the criminal justice system
Fathers, families, and child poverty

These are not siloed issues. They are interconnected realities that shape the lived experiences of families across every community in this country.

What the Data Told Us

During the session, participants were asked two polling questions to better understand organizational readiness and practice.

Q1: What’s the greatest obstacle to adopting new, culturally responsive practices in your organization’s work with fathers?

Category
Leadership buy-in and culture – 18 responses (32.7%)
Limited time or staff capacity – 15 responses (27.3%)
Access to high-quality training or models – 12 responses (21.8%)
Other – 7 responses (12.7%)
Fear of “getting it wrong” / staff resistance – 3 responses (5.5%)
Total responses – 55 (100%)

The most striking takeaway is this: nearly 60 percent of respondents identified leadership buy-in, organizational culture, and staff capacity as the primary barriers. These are not issues of will. They are issues of structure.

Q2: In your experience, what most impacts whether a father feels respected and engaged by a program or provider?

Category
All of the above – 30 responses (57.7%)
Provider tone and communication style – 6 responses (11.5%)
Representation on staff – 6 responses (11.5%)
Program design and flexibility – 5 responses (9.6%)
Consistency and follow-through – 5 responses (9.6%)
Total responses – 52 (100%)

Here, respondents overwhelmingly affirmed what many fathers have long said: engagement is not about a single tactic. It is about alignment. Tone, representation, flexibility, consistency, and communication all matter—together.

The Larger Gap We Keep Circling

What became evident throughout the conversation is something many of us have known intuitively for years. There is no shortage of anecdotal knowledge about what fathers and families need. What is missing are secure, accessible, and credible places to learn how to do this work well—at the local, regional, national, and international levels.

Even during the session, when participants were asked to point to professional development opportunities focused on strengthening families through father engagement, only a handful were named. Among them were the International Families and Fathers Conference, hosted by the Fathers and Families Coalition of America, and another national convening. That was essentially the list.

There are very few curriculum-based training programs in this field. Even fewer have gone through rigorous federal vetting. FFCA’s Advanced Practitioner Credential Course includes a component that underwent review and approval by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That level of scrutiny is not common in community-based education, and it matters.

Likewise, credentialing programs that offer continuing education units in this space are limited. We went through the CEU approval process because workforce sustainability and professional legitimacy matter. Yet during this conversation, we could not identify a single major university with a nationally integrated fatherhood curriculum embedded within its school of social work, education, or public policy.

That gap should concern all of us.

 

A Call to Action: Moving From Conversation to Commitment

The December 9 Fatherhood in Focus convening reminded us of something both simple and urgent: the challenges facing fathers, families, and the professionals who serve them are not abstract. They are real, systemic, and solvable—but only if we move beyond discussion toward shared commitment.

This is precisely why the 27th International Families and Fathers Conference exists.

For nearly three decades, this conference has served as a national and international convening space where practitioners, researchers, policymakers, funders, educators, and community leaders come together to do what is often difficult in our day-to-day work: slow down, learn across disciplines, challenge assumptions, and build frameworks that lead to better outcomes for children, mothers, fathers, families, and communities.

What emerged clearly from the City of New York conversation was the need for leadership buy-in, workforce capacity-building, culturally responsive models, and credible professional development pathways. These are not side conversations at our conference—they are central to it.

The conference offers a rare opportunity to engage with:

If we are serious about shifting culture, improving practice, and strengthening families in meaningful ways, then we must also be serious about where we invest our time, our learning, and our collective energy.

Early Bird registration for the April conference opens January 1.

I encourage you not only to attend, but to bring colleagues, supervisors, emerging leaders, and partners with you—especially those who influence organizational culture and decision-making. Change happens faster when learning is shared.

You can learn more about the conference, including registration details, programming, and updates, here:
https://fathersandfamiliescoalition.org///www.fathersandfamiliescoalition.org/conferences.html

To explore the evolving conference schedule and session offerings, visit:
https://fathersandfamiliescoalition.org///www.fathersandfamiliescoalition.org/conferences/27th-international-families-and-fathers-conference-schedule.html

Let this be the moment where insight becomes infrastructure, where collaboration becomes strategy, and where commitment replaces ambivalence.

We look forward to continuing the conversation—and more importantly, the work—together this April.

Leadership Buy-In Is Not Optional

Over the past twenty-six years—now heading into our twenty-seventh—I can say with confidence that FFCA’s conference has consistently convened one of the most diverse cross-sections of leadership in the family-serving field. We have welcomed assistant secretaries from the Administration for Children and Families, commissioners from the U.S. Office of Child Support Enforcement, leadership from the Administration for Children, Youth, and Families, national foundations such as the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the California Endowment, U.S. Senators, Members of Congress, governors, mayors, CEOs, executive directors, and researchers.

One moment that remains vivid for me was when then-Governor Janet Napolitano spoke openly about her love and admiration for her father and issued a personal call to action grounded in that relationship. That kind of leadership matters.

But national visibility does not automatically translate into local culture change.

It is one thing to have a fatherhood program. It is another to embed father engagement into a broader strengthening families strategy that addresses behavioral health, workforce development, child welfare, education, and public safety simultaneously. At an institute we hosted at Clark Atlanta University, a national expert on human trafficking shared a finding that stopped the room cold: one of the strongest protective factors against child exploitation and trafficking is healthy father involvement.

That does not diminish the work of programs that do not explicitly focus on fathers. It simply underscores why leadership understanding is critical. Without it, we risk studying the past to predict the future while ignoring models that already exist in the present.

Why This Small Survey Still Matters

Only fifty-five people responded to the poll. That may reflect time constraints. It may reflect survey fatigue. Or it may reflect ambivalence. And ambivalence, left unaddressed, becomes a barrier in its own right.

This is why that December 9 convening matters. It offers a snapshot of what is needed to move forward: leadership buy-in, staff capacity-building, access to vetted training models, and spaces where professionals across disciplines can learn together.

Collaboration Is Still the Key

Fathers and Families Coalition of America does not exist in isolation, nor should it. There are remarkable local programs, regional initiatives, national organizations, and global systems doing meaningful work. Our belief has always been that collaboration is the key to sustainable impact.

Through our affiliates, members, faculty, speakers, presenters, and partners, we have worked to provide actionable models, practical tools, and blueprints grounded in evidence-based practices, emerging frameworks, policy analysis, and coalition-building strategies. Frameworks matter because they provide a foundation. Foundation allows innovation to last.

An Invitation Forward

I encourage everyone who participated—or who could not—to revisit the Fatherhood in Focus recording and reflect on where it intersects with your own work, your organization, and your community.

Recording Link:
 https://dycd-nyc.zoomgov.com/rec/share/cIuoy4nH2w9IK9g6tWDqY4t0KbHmAjD_XT_QJ1WC3aOLaerLp0AMNY-7Q7K_X_D1.oHFZ684rs-2pyE__
Passcode: H9*5aiPC

But revisiting the conversation is only the first step. The real work is building it—locally, regionally, statewide, nationally, and internationally.

We invite you to join us in that work and to be part of a broader call to action at the 27th International Families and Fathers Conference, where collaboration, leadership, research, policy, and practice converge with one shared purpose: strengthening families by engaging fathers in meaningful, measurable, and sustainable ways.

Progress will not come from one program, one conference, or one organization. It will come from shared responsibility, aligned leadership, and the courage to move beyond ambivalence toward action.