Fathers are a social and emotional resource for Moms, children, and communities. Good fathering includes healthy family and community relationships that support prevention. We will look back to early childhood to trace the preventive elements of fathering and the skills and assets that family men can bring to children’s lives. We look forward to finding ways to address unconscious bias against family men, assess our relationship with them, and highlight the value of fatherhood in your work.  We bring our whole selves to our work, so it is important to assess our personal experiences and their impact on our connections with families. Together, we’ll have a lively, interactive conversation using a multisensory approach, with research, role-plays, music, photos, and videos. I look forward to your contribution to this collective experience.

Family support workers serve as a Bridge for families, helping them get Over Troubled Waters to the other side. Workers have their own personal and professional challenges, and sometimes they get in the way. We can fix that. Understanding how those challenges affect their relationships with the families they serve is essential. Our effectiveness depends on that understanding. And it’s all complicated by our own family dynamics, culture, social unrest, health challenges, employment, and economics. This training is designed to broaden our understanding, cultivate insight, inspire empathy, and help us discover strategies for navigating our environment with a measure of professionalism and success. And with that, we become better “Bridges.” With a multisensory approach, this presentation/training will incorporate photos, videos, music, role-plays, and engaging conversations to support learning.