Children who grow up in the child welfare system lack support from a mother or father, yet the emphasis is often placed on reconnecting children with a maternal figure over a paternal one, according to the Commonwealth Citizens Council (CCC).
One of the council’s founders, Rufus Sylvester Lynch, a social worker, looked at 35 child and family agencies across Philadelphia in 2016. Not one had “in its mission statement the word father or fatherhood,” Lynch says.
As a statewide advocacy organization in Pennsylvania, the CCC hopes to change this—together with other organizations advocating for the importance of fathers in children’s lives.
“There needs to be culture change in child welfare agencies from focusing on mom to focusing on the entire family,” says Christopher Brown, CEO of the National Fatherhood Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to helping fathers.
But why are fathers so important? And why have they been given less attention within the child welfare system? As Father’s Day approaches on June 16, Lynch explains the motivation behind the movement for greater father involvement in Pennsylvania.
Institutional Barriers
One in three children in Pennsylvania grow up without a father, according to the CCC, but there are institutional barriers that contribute to that number, and the council’s mission is to remove those barriers.
The CCC formed in November 2023 out of a campaign to establish the Pennsylvania Advisory Committee on Greater Father Involvement in the General Assembly, according to a news release.
The CCC argued in that release that the state’s child welfare system suffers from “a failure to search for fathers,” “penalizing fathers who owe child support” and “resistance to engaging fathers who are incarcerated,” among other issues.
Lynch, both a CCC founder and a Philadelphia resident, says the council’s goal is to redress those issues.
“The Commonwealth Citizens Council represents a network of Pennsylvania citizens committed to ending the institutional barriers that often prevent fathers from fostering supportive connections with their children,” Lynch says. “Our goal is to work with local, state and federal government leaders to remove systemic barriers and encourage both maternal and paternal involvement in the raising of children.”
Why Is it Important for Fathers to Be Involved?
Brown, of the National Fatherhood Initiative, explains that “decades of research shows physical, mental, cognitive and social benefits are bestowed on children when they grow up with dads.”
“There’s less infant mortality and low birth weight. There are fewer emotional and behavioral problems. There’s less child neglect and abuse, less obesity, fewer physical injuries, better school performance, less teen pregnancy and incarceration of juveniles, less alcohol and substance abuse, and there’s less criminal activity and even suicide attempts,” Brown adds.
Fathers also bring “unique gifts to parenting,” Brown continues.
“For example, a lot of people across the country understand that dads engage kids in rough and tumble play. What they don’t understand is how does that benefit kids?” he explains. “Through that rough and tumble play, dads can educate their kids on when they’re getting too rough or too loud.”
Furthermore, there’s a public cost when fathers are not around, according to Brown.
“And that’s through the taxes we pay for federal, local and state government efforts to support these families,” he says.
Fighting for Change
That’s why lowering barriers to the welfare system for fathers is important.
After seeing the lack of references to fatherhood in family agencies in Philadelphia in 2016, Lynch hosted a meeting at a Free Library of Philadelphia branch with the city’s managing director.
By 2018, 12 city agencies had gotten 3FA, or father-friendly-flagship agency, certification from the Strong Families Commission, a nonprofit organization run by Lynch.
“I said, ‘Philadelphia’s a wonderful place, but Philadelphia is only one of 67 counties in Pennsylvania,’” Lynch recalls. “We went from Philadelphia to Allegheny County.”
Lynch worked with local leaders to lobby the General Assembly to pass Act 114 of 2022, which established the Pennsylvania Advisory Commission on Greater Father Involvement.
The committee issued a report on responsible fatherhood programs in January.
Among the recommendations from members were “a legal presumption of shared parenting time,” allowing parents to proceed in court cases without a lawyer and “putting teeth on sanctions” against in-custody parents who defy court orders to appear, says Larry DeMarco, a lawyer in Philadelphia and a volunteer for the CCC.
“Someone without money [for a lawyer] can get quickly drained,” he says.
DeMarco had been able to represent himself in a custody case and retain shared custody of his child.
Now, Lynch, DeMarco and their allies also want to see state funding for “father-friendly service centers,” DeMarco says.
“One of the things I know about change—systemic change, policy change—is that often people want something to happen. They fight hard for it to happen, but when it does happen, they think their work is finished,” Lynch says. “But in many instances, it’s just the beginning. One of the things I want people to understand is the work is not done.”
I’m a single father raising a newborn child all of my own. I don’t get any help from the welfare system. Because they consider a black man, raising a child on his own cannot happen. But they feel confident in letting a homosexual as someone who’s not a color razor child. So this article is really b******* They will not do anything for a black man trying to do right for his child. I have yet to receive any kind of funding or help with my high Which is 1300 a month but still yet you have Al these illegal aliens and these homosexuals.You will break a net to make sure they get what they want before.A black man to get anything in America is impossible so his article doesn’t make any sense doing it for publicity.Trust me