Causes: Family Services, Human Services

Mission: The national center for fathering seeks to improve the lives of children and establish a positive fathering and family legacy that will impact future generations by inspiring and equipping fathers and father figures to be actively engaged in the lives of children. The organization conducts research on fathering, creates and distributes fatherhood training and promotion programs, delivers live father training, and provides resources via the internet, radio and mail to the general public.

Programs: Watch d. O. G. S. Is the father involvement in education initiative of the national center for fathering. The initiative provides resources and consultation that enable schools to establish a school-based watch d. O. G. S. Program that encourages fathers and father figures to volunteer at their children's school to provide both a security presence and a positive male role model. At the end of the fiscal year, there were 4,083 active watch d. O. G. S. Programs in 46 states that involved an estimated 347,000 watch d. O. G. S. Volunteers providing 2. 4 million hours of service in their children's schools.

father training conducted by the national center for fathering includes live training events and workshops presented to the public by the center. These include the quenching the father thirst train-the-trainer workshop, 7 steps to a successful watch d. O. G. S. Program workshop and other curriculum developed by the center for use in a variety of settings. During the fiscal year, the center presented public and teleconferenced training events with total attendance of 3,025. Four train-the-trainer workshops were held during the year training 29 individuals to deliver training in their communities and 1,401 small group study guides were distributed or sold for use in community and church-based fathering classes.

fatherhood promotion activities include public speaking in various venues to promote responsible fatherhood, media interviews, production of a daily radio program broadcast in markets across the country, "what my father means to me" essay contests conducted in various metropolitan and state wide markets and a vibrant website and online social media outreach offering many free fathering resources. In the fiscal year, national center for fathering staff presented at 48 venues addressing live audiences of 9,392. The center's daily 3-minute radio program, today's father, was broadcast by an estimated 300 stations to an estimated audience of 300,000. The center sponsored or co-sponsored three father of the year essay contests that generated 3,000+ essays submitted by school children on the topic "what my father means to me. " the center produced a weekly e-letter containing practical fathering stories and applications that was distributed to over 80,000 individuals each week.