A longtime advocate for fostering fatherhood engagement has expanded his reach statewide.

David Co's, art of the Commonwealth Center for Fathers and Families talks about an upcoming summit that can help strengthen families.

Class made the first black woman to lead the ACLU of Kentuckyian Purdue.

That's now on connections.

♪ ♪ Thank you for joining me for connections today.

I'm Renee Shaw.

My first guest says there's evidence that fathers who are engaged in their children's lives, those children have better outcomes.

David comes our is the founder and chief visionary officer for the Commonwealth Center for Fathers and Families.

And he talked to me about an upcoming fatherhood conference and the work of his center and building stronger families and communities.

>> David Kosar, it's good to have you on the program.

It's good to be here.

So let's talk about you are the founding and I love the titled It's Not just a typical CEO.

How do you define your leadership title with the Commonwealth Center for Fathers and Families.

>> Yeah.

So you would notice that chief visionary officer and that is somewhat like a CEO.

But I really feel like haven't been in this space for just south of 3 decades.

That.

At this juncture it it's a vision that I'm carrying forth and one that I've carried for some time.

And now in this season, activating it and implementing it through and with others.

Yeah.

>> Because when you've been on this program before you were in different capacities with the fatherhood initiative.

But now when you put center in a title, that's an elevation of sorts.

So talk to us about the work that continues that you've been doing for 30 years and where it's yet to go and your view.

>> Yeah, that's that's a big But the Commonwealth Center for Fathers and Families is an extension local direct service delivery programming to fathers and families that I've done for some time with many great partners Lexington and even while doing it locally, recognizing the need for not only direct services to be institute it, but also statewide elements and replication and playing Tina programs.

And moreover, those systemic challenges that we need to address.

And so Commonwealth Center for fathers and family of 4 to set opportunity.

Yeah.

>> Fatherhood engagement, father's engaged in their families and their children's lives.

Even if their relationship with the former significant other or the the partner with whom they may not any longer be connected to you believe and I've always been about but believed is important.

Why is fatherhood engagement, father's engagement so important in the family and community structure in your view?

Yeah.

>> So you talked about family caught a constellations and compositions families, whether there are a mother of a child and the father of a child that are here here or here or I am so those are good gesture.

Stood out that I like to use and when they are working together in cooperation and complimentary, we know the life outcomes of children are enhanced.

And so this organization seeks to propagate not just that notion but infrastructure that can increase healthy relationships responsible fatherhood and and used a believe.

I have believed this for some time.

I have believed for some time, but we actually know research driven quantitative plea that when healthy fathers are engaged with children about every negative life outcome or any negative life outcome that we would want a kind with those we love for children that we father engagement helps mitigate reduce or at times distill that >> We know that our society now there's many fractured relationships and particularly when it comes to the intimate partner variety strike.

So for the single mother who may be watching, who would say why?

The father of my child to children is not a suitable person to be around my child because of maybe criminal background or history with domestic violence and abuse.

You giving them a pass.

>> It's not a pass.

So I want us what I would say to those single mothers.

I would say to them think well of that father, even when he may not be at the may not currently be at the stage of development to be in the life of the child or be in a continue relationship with the mother of the child just as we want to think.

Well of the mother, yet there were challenges in her life.

Situationally secondly, I would say that fatherhood is not contradictory to motherhood.

It's complimentary.

And so what we know again, statistically is that when fathers are engaged, maternal stress is reduced.

When fathers are engaged, premade Ali morbidity of for mom, which we know is huge in certain cultures and for the child are reduced.

What we know that when fathers are engage, help them a healthy way with mother of baby and child, that poverty is reduced.

And so those are just some statistical elements that kind of help mitigate some more emotional elements that can often govern.

How we how we act so fatherhood.

It's not been to.

This is a mother Hood and that's not contradictory to it.

>> The man in the population that you they have on average a particular type of background, have a interface with the criminal justice system or have a history of substance use disorder.

>> And others, not again, what the Commonwealth Center for Fathers and family does.

It's sink to standardize an element of fatherhood and service delivery sectors.

Human services, health care, education.

And so we'll work or seek to buttress any father, any system trying to support for others for all the good that they bring.

And so we have our closest thing to a direct service delivery that the Commonwealth Center for Fathers and family execute.

Just okay.

What Dad Okay.

Why dad Academy does take fathers into a six-week 10 section session.

Call it training intense of our fellowship and 6 to help them personally develop and professionally developed so they can be the best father.

They can be but also be civically engaged.

And ultimately we want them to become ambassadors and drum majors of the work in their region because we're statewide.

I'm so when their county or their region so that they can help spread the word of fatherhood and get a standardized system somewhere there where they are.

But many do with their known to the justice meeting with substance misuse disorders because we don't believe any.

A point in time pulling mitigate you from Reedy mean and being an effective father, right?

Just as we would a sign that same value for mothers resolutely rights.

You know what sometimes has more sympathy for the mothers who are experiencing those same types of dilemmas and perhaps a more harsher or harsher judgment for men who are.

>> Some would say that in our systems and infrastructures to support what we call family.

We're often centered around my yeah.

>> So let's talk about a big summit to that.

You have coming up in October.

Tell us about this.

>> October 17 to 19, just a couple of weeks from now.

We have the Kentucky Fatherhood Summit.

We're proud to be doing it for the 5th consecutive year.

We had some interruptions in there and then being able to do it in person.

Of course.

But we do it in partnership with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services who was a major partner of ours.

In this case, the Department for Income support, which currently is under the Cabinet.

You would know from your affiliations in Frankfort that a shift a little bit today, G's office in.

24, I believe this.

What what has been determined.

But this summit will have.

State our local, state and national experts in the field.

If you are interested in knowing what is trending with HHS and ACF that health and Human Services or administration for children and families.

We will have officials from the federal organization that will be sharing that we will have.

Officials are expert from across the nation in the persons of color brands.

Well, and Patrick Patterson, who I say would be on the Mount Rushmore and we'll also have our local Department of that will be sharing father because fatherhood is so unfortunately intricately tied to a our institutions are and a lot of fathers are incarcerated.

So it's going to be a great time.

Yeah.

>> So the the ultimate goal or the 3 to 5 year strategic plan for your center contains 3 to 5 main things.

What are they?

>> That's why like us to easy question.

So I hinted at that when I started talking about Cay, why dads that we're seeking to position across the state complementing that we have many grants that we are planting seeds of projects across the states which could become programs.

What's the K?

Why dads in these programs could begin come barging and the next stage in this 3 to 5 years is that we want our outpost centers for fathers and families across the state.

Perhaps the 9 cabinet regions would be one model right?

And everyone would have access to direct service delivery for fathers and families and communities.

So the long-term goal is to have outpost around Kentucky and the Commonwealth Center will be the epicenter.

Durham, relentless quality control and improvement technical assistance.

Keeping us up to date on emerging in promising practices and fatherhood will be standardized across systems across the state.

>> And the ultimate outcome is that there are more stable families, better educational and health outcomes for children and a lesser population in the juvenile justice system and beyond.

And they adult.

>> Although those are among the outcomes of the returns on investment.

When we start going upstream and revitalizing families and putting all those healthy adults that we can around children, fathers being one of them.

Yes, Sunday, though, has got to be important.

Absolutely.

You know, funding is and resources provision is always a part.

I actually do get concerned about him because I believe it's a it's a Dubai and work in the provision will come.

Nonetheless, we do have partnerships.

We are continuing to nurture and build partnerships so that we have the resources to do what we need to do now.

>> Well, continued success as you grow and into these spaces all across the commonwealth.

It's always good to see you.

I was sad to see you as well.

More to come on connections as Amber do guys, civil rights leader who says she's made a lifelong commitment to star in, quote, good trouble.

>> And helping marginalized individuals and communities.

She is now the executive director of the ACLU of Kentucky after serving in other capacities with the organization and as a former journalist.

♪ Amber do executive director of the ACLU of Kentucky.

It's a pleasure to connect with you.

>> Thank you so much for having me.

Well, congratulations on being named the executive This is a an office for which you have been suiting up for for some Talk to us about your storied careers with the ACLU of Kentucky.

Sure.

So I have been employed at the ACLU of Kentucky for about 10 and a half years now.

>> I started as the organization's first communications director.

My background is in I was a news producer for about 5 and a half years and ended up leaving that work behind sort of getting tired of the schedule.

The breaking news and wanted to really go a bit deeper with my communications has spent some time at the University of Louisville is the program director at the and Brain Institute for Social Justice research.

And then the ACLU created the communications director position, which at the time was my absolute dream job to be able to still work with the media, but also highlight the really important work.

The ACLU of Kentucky was doing here in the Commonwealth.

So I was in that role for a number of years, ended up Graham from a one percent.

Comms team to a 2 person comms team.

And as our organization grew around 2016, as many ACLU affiliates did at the time, I ended up moving to the administrative side of the organization and really, you know, working on Strategy, Vision and providing support to our growing team.

So is deputy director for about a year and a half or so.

And our prior executive director left.

And so I moved into the interim executive director all and served in that role for about a year and a half before being named executive director this spring.

So a long journey.

I never imagined when I walked through the doors of the ACLU that I would be there for more than a decade or even that would be in this position.

But it's really an honor to get to serve in this role.

>> Talk to us about when people hear a CEO, you they think they know what it is.

But did tell us what is it we may not understand or don't know about the work of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky.

>> So the ACLU of Kentucky is an affiliate of the national ACLU.

I think that folks likely know the ACLU has been around for over 100 years.

What folks may not know is that the ACLU of Kentucky has been around for almost 70 years.

We're going to be turning 68 years old this year.

Our affiliate started out as a group of volunteers who are actually working on and and Karl Braden case.

And for folks who don't know about that, and corroborate why couple from here in Louisville who purchased a home on behalf of a black family.

The waves and in the 1950's when the waves are having problems, securing housing here in Louisville and they ended up being charged with sedition or attempting to overthrow the government of Kentucky.

And so there are folks here in wall that we're very concerned to see that kind of government reaction to this couple that was trying to help.

I'm a woman, 8 housing discrimination in this very sort of personal way.

And so they started a charter for an ACLU affiliate here in Kentucky over the years we've worked on a number of issues and of course that, you know, folks have seen the organization's name in headlines.

We've worked on school desegregation.

We parked on LGBT rights issue, of course, free speech and shoes.

So should any number of social justice issues were multi issue organization right now, our focus has really been around reproductive freedom.

I'm sure we might get into the details of a little bit about that later.

But we're very concerned about reproductive freedom in particular, restoring access to abortion here in the Commonwealth.

We've also been in headlines recently for I work challenging that Ryan's youth medical care band here in the state.

>> And Amber, the organization has worked across the aisle.

Many people assume that the ACLU has a partisan bent or more progressive leaning position or stance.

But you have been able to forge some relationships across the aisle when it comes to criminal justice reform, which there seemed to be a lot of momentum behind that a few years ago.

Do you believe that stalled or what is the next frontier or the next leg of the move.

But when it comes to criminal justice reform, what needs to happen next?

>> Sure.

Yes.

Thank you for pointing out.

We are non-partisan organization.

There are those that think that we're not.

But we will work with anyone affiliated with the party are not affiliated with the party.

Oftentimes I feel like there, you know, if we're working on a particular policy and we have folks on either side of the aisle that are mad at us are frustrated with us.

I normally sort of, you know, tell my team that I think that we're right about the right place.

Justice reform is an issue where we have been very successful, not only working across the aisle in the capital.

We've also forge partnerships with some incredible community partners, both, you know, sort of organizations like the Kentucky Chamber that has been interested in criminal justice reform from a work for for its perspective, work is part of the Kentucky Smart on Crime Coalition, for example, with the Catholic Conference of Kentucky, of Course, when it comes to issues around reproductive freedom, we don't necessarily see eye to eye.

But when it comes to justice reform, we have found some common ground that we can work together.

So we have been very successful in recent years, for example, in felony expungement Paso, you know, one of the things that we believe very strongly is that if a person makes a mistake, they served their time.

They should be able to continue on and be full participants and their community.

And we have a lot of things that hold people.

After they served from time.

Whether it's from voting, whether it's from getting professional licenses.

And so expunge man has been was something that we worked on several years ago and got has there been some adjustments to expand that?

And one of the things that we are really working on moving forward.

And again, working across the aisle and feel like we have some momentum.

He's around what's called a clean slate legislation and essentially the expungement process that we already have in place.

We want to automate portions of that process.

There are challenges that people are facing in accessing expungement.

They're having to hire lawyers that a great cause.

Hassan order to get their paperwork that they need in order to file for those expunge months.

So there have been other states who have passed this legislation that have been excess successful in in in getting more folks able to take advantage of expungement policies that we already have in place.

So there is an interim hearing about that.

We had some folks from our smart Justice Advocates group, which is a group of folks who have been directly impacted by the criminal justice system com and share their stories with legislators about what they have experienced.

And so we plan to continue those conversations you know, I think that criminal justice reform has been an area where we've been so successful because it impacts so many different sectors and so many different aspects of life.

And so, you know, we have folks in the religious community that are interested and seeing forgiveness and redemption and second chances we have folks from the business community that are looking at challenges around workforce and filling jobs.

And if we have people have felonies or, you know, they're boxes that they have to check on applications and they can't sell these critical positions in the commonwealth.

That's also a problem in terms of workforce and and the broader economic economic outlook for the state.

So I think that's why because of, you know, the far-reaching impacts involvement with the criminal justice system has on an individual.

I think that we try to sort of look at that issue holistically and that's why we've been able to bring people together around that fairly successfully.

So now let's talk about at least one of the big issues that the ACLU of Kentucky >> has been focused on reproductive rights is is you coin and have phrased it earlier?

That is a big issue that is surfacing again in the Kentucky governor's race.

Where is the fight now?

Is can abortion rights advocates work?

I know you are working to have those rights restored for women, but is it a possibility or is it too much stacked against you?

So it's a couple of things.

One all say we are definitely still working very h*** o* reproductive freedom issues.

>> I mean, at this time, quite honestly, I feel like we are working even harder than we have been before.

Now that Kentucky is a force pregnancy state.

So we've been doing work for years around them.

And the maternal crisis in Kentucky we've been interested in paid leave.

We're very concerned about the childcare Cliff.

That's about to come at some of the federal funds that come in from COVID go away.

So we're still continuing to have conversations and to do policy work around those issues that's become even more important, especially as states around us have lost access to abortion.

And and folks in Kentucky have to travel further.

We know that there are people here in this commonwealth who don't want to carry a pregnancy who essentially have been forced by the state to carry the pregnancy.

And so we want to make sure these other policies are in place so that they can safely get through their pregnancy and have access to childcare.

In terms of what is happening with.

Our legal fight to restore access in the Commonwealth.

I think most folks likely know the back ground of row falling at the federal level.

We filed the case in state court seeking.

2 seeking to recognize the right to abortion that we believe is inherent in Kentucky's constitution.

There's a right to self-determination of, you know, strong rights around determining your own past.

And we think that those, you know, Mary, pretty closely with having the right to access abortion.

That case was making its way through the courts.

In the meantime, we're part of the coalition that helped defeat amendment to here in Kentucky.

That was an attempt to put anti-abortion language in Kentucky's constitution.

And so after that measure failed, it was sort of proved to us of what we've been saying for years that, you know, yes, there are some very loud voices against having access to abortion, the commonwealth that the majority of Kentuckians do believe there should be access in the state one week after the election.

We were arguing at the Kentucky State Supreme Court in our case it was several months before we heard back from the court and we've got a pretty unprecedented ruling which said that the doctor, there's that we're bringing the case on behalf of their patients that they clu we represented the mw Women's Surgical Center.

That's based here in Louisville.

Our co-counsel in the case was Planned Parenthood, which is also an abortion provider here in law.

The Supreme Court ruled that doctors did not have standing to bring the case on behalf of their patients.

And didn't rule on the merits of our case, didn't ultimately answer the question of whether or not there's a right to abortion in Kentucky's constitution.

And the court said a patient plaintiff will have to be the person that brings the challenge before the court.

You can imagine that part of the reason why doctors have been able to bring claims on behalf of their patients are the challenges inherent in a patient trying to bring?

I'm such a lawsuit before the court.

So we're in a circumstance now in Kentucky where at the end of June, we dismissed our state case because after that ruling came down, we had a period of time that we needed to identify the patient plaintiff.

We've been working to do that.

As you can imagine for someone who is facing an on unwanted pregnancy and they're calling to get information about how they can get abortion care.

They find out they can't get it here in Kentucky.

They're having to make decisions about how they're traveling out of state.

It's been very difficult to find someone he's facing all of those challenges to also say and yes, I would like to be a plaintiff in a major challenge to challenge this at the state level.

>> Well, Amber Duke, thank you so very much for speaking with Once again, we give our congratulations for you ascending to the role of executive director.

And I'm sure our pads will cross again.

We just thank you for your time.

>> Thank you so much.

>> Thank you for joining me today on connections.

More interesting guests and important issues to come.

Stay connected with me on social media and listen to podcast of our previous episodes of Connections and other public affairs programs.

Thanks for watching.

And until I see you again, take really good care.