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NEW YORK STATE
Effort aims to get dads involved
Having 2 parents gives kids an advantage, office says
BY SARA FOSS Gazette Reporter

The spongy baseballs are popular. Teenagers call out for them as they walk by the table and catch them when they are tossed their way. Men, women and children approach the table to request them.
One man wants something different. “Do you have any more of those blow-up balls?” he asks. Seconds later, his son watches him inflate the beach ball he’s given.
   The giveaway takes place beneath darkening August skies, shortly before the minor league Tri-City ValleyCats take the field for the second game of a doubleheader at the Joseph L. Bruno Stadium in Troy. The smells of kettle corn and cotton candy are in the air. The team’s mascot makes his way through the stands, and fireworks, at one point, light up the night.
   But it isn’t all fun and games. Printed on the freebies is a serious message: “Dads make a difference.”
   It’s a message that reinforces the central idea underpinning the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance’s Responsible Fatherhood Initiative.
   The innovative program, launched in 2006, seeks to improve the lives of children by getting fathers to play an active role in their lives. The idea is that children from two-parent families are healthier and more successful — less likely to live in poverty, drop out of school, use drugs or go to jail, according to the OTDA’s literature. The program’s motto is “Strengthening Families Through Stronger Fathers.”
   “People are just now putting the focus on men,” said Kenneth Braswell, who serves as assistant program manager for the state fatherhood initiative. “They’re looking at how to engage fathers.”
   “We see this as a way of breaking the cycle of poverty,” said David Hansell, commissioner of the OTDA. Nearly 15 percent of New York state children live in a single-parent home without a father present, according to the OTDA.
TEACHING FATHERHOOD
   The table at the Tri-City Valley-Cats game, which is on the walkway girding the stadium and sees a steady stream of passers-by during a lull in the action on the field, contains pamphlets and booklets aimed at fathers in need of assistance.
   One booklet, which came out this summer, is titled “A Driver’s Manual for New Dads: A resource guide for taking care of your new baby and your partner.” Inside, readers can learn how to get a marriage license and establish paternity, how to treat the mother of their child and how to prepare for the baby’s arrival. Another booklet is called “What Non-Custodial Parents Need to Know About Child Support.”
   Much of the Responsible Fatherhood Initiative’s work is aimed at reaching a much-maligned population: low-income non-custodial parents who have fallen behind in child support.
   The program sponsors pilot programs in Chautauqua County, Syracuse, Buffalo and New York City that work with this population. These programs offer parenting classes and job skills training, counseling and legal advice.
   The goal is to serve men from urban and rural areas, different ethnic backgrounds and a wide spectrum of ages. About 7 percent of clients are women, who are eligible for the pilot programs if they are the non-custodial parent. Participants must have an active child support case and be unemployed or underemployed and between the ages of 16 and 45. Many have been incarcerated or have substance abuse problems. Typically, they stop making payments due to a lack of money and end up in arrears. This can quickly lead to a host of legal problems, including jail time and the loss of a driver’s license.
   Each case is different, Braswell said, “like fingerprints.”
   The state hopes to serve 1,200 parents a year; by August, the number stood at about 600. Braswell said the programs are looking for fathers who want to provide for their children but can’t.
   “There’s a difference between dads who won’t and dads who can’t,” he said. “Those men who won’t — there’s a system in place to deal with them. Unfortunately, the ones who can’t get caught up in that system. We have to be able to help and encourage them. In New York, the average arrears for an individual coming out of prison is $12,000. That’s a lot of money for someone who can’t get a job.”
   “Men do want to work,” Hansell said. “They do want to support their families. They need job skills; we can give them services and support.”
FINANCIAL SUPPORT
   In Syracuse, the pilot program, called the Parent Success Initiative, is headquartered at the Onondaga-Cortland-Madison Counties Board of Cooperative Educational Services. The Parent Success Initiative contracts with several community-based organizations, which provide clients, many of whom have served time in prison, with job training. Initially, the main objective is simply to get people into the work force, said Michael Irwin, project director of the Parent Success Initiative.
   “It’s important for people to get as much skills as they can, but the reality is that they just need to get to work right away,” Irwin said. “It’s really about getting a job and getting stability in their lives. ... We stick with them.”
   Staff try to help clients who stay with the program advance to better positions or jobs.
   “We work with somebody as long as they want,” Irwin said. “We work with them as long as they’re improving.”
   Still, the rate of attrition is high. “A lot of people don’t stick with us,” Irwin said. “Once they get a job, they don’t want to stay in touch.”
   As of mid-August, the Parent Success Initiative had dealt with 146 people since it opened in January. Sixty-one clients had obtained employment; currently, the program has 81 active cases.
   Braswell said lack of contact between a non-custodial parent and a child often stems from financial difficulties. Many men, he said, stopped playing a role in their children’s lives once they could no longer pay child support; this inability often fueled animosity between the mother and non-custodial parent, preventing a focus on the child’s welfare.
   Visits to family court become routine, and the father often has little clue as to why he is being summoned. The pilot programs, he said, can provide attorneys who work with the non-custodial parent to bring some clarity to the situation and find a solution.
   Though the pilot programs discuss marriage and the benefits of marriage, Braswell said they are careful not to paint marriage as the only legitimate path. “We talk about statistics,” he said. “If you get married, your kids are less likely to do A, B, C and D. ... Just because you have a kid together doesn’t mean you should be together.”
   As of yet, there is no pilot program in the Capital Region, although Braswell, who is from Albany and previously served as executive editor of the now-defunct publication Urban Voices, believes there is a need for one. That’s why it’s so important, he said, to make sure the pilot programs are effective.
   “The success of the pilot programs are critical to me,” he said. “If they’re not successful, we won’t be able to expand to other areas.”
   “In my own backyard, I can see the effect of not having an organization that focuses on non-custodial parents,” he continued.
MEN NEED HELP, TOO
   Helping fathers attain jobs that pay them enough to support their families is considered the next frontier in welfare reform.
   The landmark welfare reform bill signed by former President Bill Clinton in 1996 laid out stringent work requirements for recipients, with the idea of moving people into jobs and, hopefully, self-sufficiency. But the focus was on women. The past decade saw an unprecedented decline in welfare rolls, coupled with rising work rates for single mothers.
   The federal Earned Income Tax Credit, which reduces or eliminates the taxes that low-income workers pay and sometimes subsidizes their wages, was expanded; some states, such as New York, offered their own earned income tax credits. This year, for the first time, the state offered an earned income tax credit for noncustodial parents who are current in their child support, the first EITC for non-custodial parents in the nation. The initiative resulted in more than $1.7 million in refunds being distributed to over 4,200 low-income, noncustodial parents.
   “Welfare reform was successful at helping women enter the work force,” Hansell said. “But the process didn’t reach men. They were not on the welfare rolls.”
   Gov. Eliot Spitzer declared August Child Support Month. Statewide, a record $1.558 billion in child support was collected in 2006, and Hansell has said he expects those numbers to be even higher this year.
   At the ValleyCats game, the state honored fathers who were the subjects of winning essays written by their children. Entrants were asked to write 100 words or less describing how their dad makes a difference in their life. Nine-year-old Rachel Muzio of Charlton wrote the winning essay; her father, Frank Muzio, 41, got to throw out the first pitch at the ValleyCats game.
   In her essay, Rachel wrote, “My dad makes a difference in my life because he includes me in everything he does. From teaching me how to swim, taking time off from work to coach my softball team, to walking with my Brownie troop in the parade, he makes sure he doesn’t miss anything I’m involved in. My dad is always there smiling when I do great in school or play sports. I know my dad loves me by the way he smiles at me when he thinks I’m not looking. But mostly my dad makes a difference because he listens to me.”
   Muzio, a chemical operator at Momentive Performance Materials, didn’t see the essay before it was submitted.
   “I don’t think about it,” he said of his duties as a father. “I just do normal things. You don’t realize that they make an impression.”

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One booklet, which came out this summer, is titled “A Driver’s Manual for New Dads: A resource guide for taking care of your new baby and your partner.” Inside, readers can learn how to get a marriage license and establish paternity, how to treat the mother of their child and how to prepare for the baby’s arrival. Another booklet is called “What Non-Custodial Parents Need to Know About Child Support.”