Bay Area Fatherhood Symposium

Nile Hall at Preservation Park, Oakland California

Saturday, November 18, 2006

On Saturday, November 18, 2006, a day-long Bay Area Fatherhood Symposium was held at Presentation Park in downtown Oakland, CA. 150 people attended, most of whom were staff and young & adult male clients of local organizations doing fatherhood work.

The event was funded by ICS through the CCF grant as part of our effort to strengthen marriages and families, and organized by Mr. Darryl McMillon (of MAPP Coalition, a 1^st year CCF sub-awardee), with help from Ms. Ernesta Wright (our capacity-building trainer for the CCF sub-awardees), ICS staff and other local organization leaders.

The emphasis of the symposium was on promoting and teaching the characteristics and skills of being a responsible father—teaching dads how to be better dads, and teaching young males what their responsibility as fathers will be.

Featured speakers included: Ms. Charlene L. Meeks (Manager, Los Angeles Children & Family Agency), Mr. Muntu Mbonisi (Director, The Mentoring Center, Oakland), Mr. Uriel Johnson (Associate Vice President, National & Regional Development, National Partnership for Community Leadership [NPCL], Washington, DC).

Video presentations were shown of Mr. Joe Jones, a National Fatherhood leader in Baltimore, MD, and of Mr. Charles Ballard, founder of the Institute for Responsible Fatherhood in Washington, DC.

Several breakout workshops emphasizing various aspects of fatherhood and family were held in the afternoon.

Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson addressed the participants in the morning saying how gratified and encouraged he was to see such a symposium taking place in Oakland, because of the severe lack of such fatherhood training and modeling in the city, which suffers from the consequences of absentee fathers (i.e., juvenile delinquency, youth crime, poverty, boys & girls not being raised with a father’s love and guidance, etc.).

There was an overall consensus that this Fatherhood Symposium was a fine success in bringing together key leaders and fathers to discuss this vital issue and general agreement that more local Fatherhood Symposiums need to occur. The core planning group is considering ongoing jointly-sponsored Fatherhood activities for the coming year.

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This educational event was funded by Institute for Contemporary Studies

through the Compassion Capital Fund grant as part of ICS’s effort to strengthen marriages and families.