Obama steps up fatherhood advocacy with new mentoring initiative

[babylonsister]

Obama steps up fatherhood advocacy with new mentoring initiative

By Krissah Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 21, 2010


In what is becoming a Father's Day ritual for the Obama administration, the president on Monday will bring together children, famous dads and nonprofit groups that promote fatherhood to highlight the importance of fathers.

The center of President Obama's day-long celebration will be a speech at the ARC, an arts and recreation campus in Southeast Washington, where he is set to announce the creation of the President's Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative. It will build on a theme that has been central to his family policy and a core part of the White House's Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

The new initiative, which is enlisting a network of organizations, will expand on a six-city listening tour the administration held last year to bring attention to the issue of fatherlessness. "The tour was a national conversation on responsible fatherhood that was rooted in the president's personal experiences growing up and his realization that father absence is a real challenge facing many communities," said Joshua DuBois, director of the partnerships office.

Last year, more than 24 million children did not live with their biological fathers, census figures show. Among low-income children, the figure is two out of three.

Obama will also ask Congress to move on his $500 million budget request for a Fatherhood, Marriage and Families Innovation Fund, which would give grants to nonprofits that support fathers and families, including job training programs and economic incentives for dads. The tightened focus on fathers and parental responsibility marks a steady shift from the George W. Bush administration's concentration on traditional marriage, said Chuck Donovan, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation and a former executive vice president at the Family Research Council.

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/21/AR2010062100006.html

[Clio the Leo]

1. Will see if the GOP can live up to it's claim of being pro-family. nt

[msongs]

2. is he gonna give em all bibles too? nt

[IOKIYAL]

3. Thanks! I bookmarked this article to cite the next time I hear someone say Obama ain't done nothing

for black people.