DATE: Thursday, September 25, 1997          TAG: 9709240100

SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS         PAGE: 14   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  135 lines

DADS LEARN HOW TO BE THERE FOR THEIR CHILDREN

John W. Carter Jr. is 28 years old, rock solid and serious. He is also a full-time auto body student and a man with a plan. ``By the time I'm 35,'' he said, ``I want to have my own business, something that will be there for my son.''

But John Carter is also something else: a single father of three children, each with a different mother. He has visitation rights with one, full custody of two.

And he is determined to make it all work.

Brian Hawkins, coordinator of a program called Fathers in Training, firmly believes that Carter and a lot of other young men in similar situations, will make it work.

Hawkins, whose full-time job is as a social worker in the Norfolk Department of Social Services Family Violence Unit, has a lot invested in Fathers in Training and in the more than 60 young men who have gone through the program, sponsored by the Virginia Beach Department of Social Services, since its beginning last year.

In groups of 10 to 15, the young fathers and fathers-to-be have learned a lot about how to be a parent and a lot more about themselves.

The program, funded under the Virginia Beach department's five-year Family Preservation Grant, hopes to strengthen families by doing something that has rarely been done before: Working on the needs of the often absent fathers and, by doing so, helping them to take responsibility for the children they brought into the world.

While welfare systems have traditionally focused on the needs of the mothers and children, they only recently began taking a close look at the importance of fathers in preventing another generation of welfare dependency.

What they saw was enough to make Virginia Beach's Department of Social Services take a closer look at what needed to be done to break the welfare chain.

The total number of children raised in single-parent families was slightly more than 5.8 million in 1960. By the 1990s, it had climbed to 18 million.

Nearly 40 percent of all children nationwide live in homes where their biological fathers are not present.

Beyond the statistics, those working with fatherless families knew there were frightening realities. The children of emotionally or physically absent fathers were far more apt to be involved in behavior that caused problems for themselves, their families and the community. They created a drain on the health, mental health, welfare, criminal justice and school systems.

The key, the social workers felt, was to get to the fathers, gain their trust and help them to take on the responsibilities of fatherhood.

``We make contact wherever we can,'' said Hawkins.

Some of the men, who so far have ranged in age from mid-teens to mid-30s, have heard about the program and called in asking to join. Some have been referred by other agencies, some by friends and some by family members.

``Sometimes it's their child's mother, sometimes it's even their own mother,'' said Kevin Childs, another of the four counselors who work regularly with the group.

Like Hawkins, his day job is with Norfolk Department of Social Services where he is a social worker in the Adult Protective Service unit.

A little after 7 on a recent Monday evening, Gregg Wilson, a drug counselor with the Tidewater Regional Group Home, stood in front of a flip chart in a room buried far back in the Employment Services Center at the rear of the Virginia Beach Social Services building. In front of him sat a dozen young men.

John Carter was one of them.

``We had an intense group last week,'' Wilson said seriously. Heads around the table nodded. ``At the start, I wondered how was this going to turn out. But by the end, I thought I was home. There was a lot of love here.''

Heads nodded again as Wilson posed the question that set the tone for the evening's discussion on conflict resolution.

``What got us moving from Point A to Point B?'' he asked.

``Acceptance,'' Carter answered, then quickly took responsibility for some of the previous week's conflict.

``It was intense because of a lot of miscommunications,'' he said. ``I was having problems on the side.'' Moments later, in something rarely seen among young men eager to proclaim their manliness, he and another group member exchanged bear hugs.

It was a major step toward mastering two components in the program's curriculum: bonding and communications. In the human services jargon of its mission statement, Fathers in Training lists the other components as values, manhood, relationships, parenting and health and sexuality.

But in the classroom, there is no jargon, just a lot of teaching, a lot of discussion, a lot of self-disclosure and a lot of caring. For some, being cared about by another male is a very new experience.

``Most of them grew up without fathers,'' Hawkins explained. Some were fortunate enough to have caring grandfathers or uncles, most were not. And some grew up not knowing that anyone - male or female - truly cared about them.

A few days after the group meeting, Carter took his two children who live with him, Techell Cuffee, 4, and John Wesley Carter III, 9, to play at Mount Trashmore. Dezi McCall, 9, tagged along with his friend John. Hawkins, who is Carter's Fathers in Training counselor, met them at the park.

``I was 19 when my son was born,'' Carter said. ``My father was 19 when I was born.'' His mother died young, leaving his father with four children to raise by himself. ``Dad made sure that we had everything we needed but he was tired when he got home,'' he explained, letting his voice trail off.

Moments later John III arrived to announce that his little sister wanted to go on the swings. ``That's all right, but make sure she's in there tight, that she's OK, and watch her good,'' Carter admonished, watching carefully as John III and Dezi returned to the playground with Techell tightly clutching her big brother's hand.

``I didn't know anything about her until she was 2 years old,'' Carter said. When he found out he had a daughter and that she wasn't being cared for, he started the complicated process of getting custody.

He's not the only one in the group who has gone to great lengths to support his child, Hawkins said.

John Carter wanted to make one thing very clear before he gathered up the children and took them back to their Rosemont home. ``I couldn't do all this without my fiance.''

He and Kifisha Jordan have been together for all but two of the past six years. She is 24, works two jobs and adores Carter's children. ``My mother wasn't there for me,'' she said. ``I love these kids; I try to work real hard with them to make sure that they have a stable home. I'm proud that he's going through (Fathers in Training). As far as the kids are concerned, it's made him more patient, more understanding.''

There have been other benefits as well, important ones.

The program helps the men negotiate the system, determine their own skills, get training and find jobs. Each is assigned a counselor to help him along the way, to be available to him in the way a father or devoted older brother would be.

As Hawkins prepared to leave, he and Carter shook hands and hugged. Hawkins, a divorced father who has custody of one child and shared custody of another, said, ``That's not something you see very often - guys being able to show affection openly.'' MEMO: For more information, call Brian Hawkins at 533-3619. ILLUSTRATION: Photos by PHILIP HOLMAN

Brian Hawkins, right, speaks to the Fathers in Training group at the

end of a meeting.

Counselor Kevin Childs discusses anger at a recent meeting of

fathers.

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