A leading advocate for fatherhood Engagement, says research shows that when fathers are present, there is less child maltreatment in the home.

Kids do better in school and they're less likely to be involved in criminal activity.

Next week in Lexington, the Commonwealth Center for Fathers and Families is hosting a three day summit to help dads, service providers, policy influencers and others learn the important role fathers play in family formation and stronger communities.

David Cozad, the founder and chief visionary officer of the center, talked with me earlier this week about the organization and what can be learned at the summit next week.

Commonwealth Center for Fathers and Families is a statewide organization now where less than a direct service delivery program.

Though we do provide some quasi direct services, so we're designed to propagate, to raise awareness around responsible fatherhood.

And we do it because of all the negative life outcomes that fatherhood mitigates.

So talk about those mitigating those negative consequences of fathers who are not as present as they should be.

What does it look like?

Yeah, I appreciate that language of not as present because so many people use the language of apps that are used, the language of father lists.

And just because one has an absent father does not mean the individual's father.

So I just want to appreciate that.

But the fatherhood one on one of it, we know by research, we know Quantité notably that when fathers are presence, there's less likelihood for any negative life outcome that you don't want occurring with someone you love a child.

Educational outcomes are increased, less high school dropout, better grades, even more likely to get A's research says, Hmm, teenage pregnancy.

It's reduced when fathers are there.

Maltreatment or abuse Neglect Allocations are reduced when fathers are there.

That's why we do so much work with our state cabinet for Health and Family services.

We know that crime victim, victims of crimes or committing a crime, a child is less likely to be engaged in that one.

So when I say just about every negative life outcome, that is not an exaggeration.

I have began to call fatherhood or fatherhood engagement the epicenter or the corner of the universe of pathology.

That is to say that all of these negative things intersect or converge at fatherhood right?

Let's talk about an upcoming workshop summit that you're having.

Yeah.

So it's a series of workshops.

It's this convening we call the Father Kentucky Fatherhood Summit.

This is obviously 2024.

It's our sixth consecutive year We've been meeting coming together to bring professionals locally, statewide and even nationally to share fatherhood, information, emerging practices and trends and trajectories of fatherhood as it relates to human service sectors and other sectors.

Certainly we want fathers there because we have content that fathers need to know, if not the now that they come and get the fatherhood one on one, that that that tends to encourage fathers on how important they are when they're present, but also human service providers, health care providers, business individuals, philanthropists.

We like our policy makers to be there because we make policies at time that can be informed by the importance of fatherhood, engagement.

And in sometimes we unintentionally make policies, procedures and practices that are actually counterintuitive to healthy family formation as it relates to paternal involvement.

A lot of couple of specialty elements this year that we're really excited about and others are it's causing others to pay attention.

One being we have a Department of Corrections track.

Not over 90% of men incarcerated our fathers.

Kentucky has one of the highest rates of parental incarceration.

So several years ago, we partner with the Department for Corrections at the state level and they pipe in or stream in correctional facilities across the state and so we have content that is germane to those that are currently incarcerated, incarcerated caregivers.

Another specialty track we're having this year is a recovery track.

So we're training facilitators.

Parenting and recovery is a curriculum for fathers that are in recovery.

And as we sit here in Kentucky, no secret to anyone that opioid misuse disorders and substance misuse disorders is a huge issue here.

We believe that when fathers are engaged and are able to reunify with families and build those relationships, it's going to increase that recovery capital.

It's going to reduce relapse.

So we're having a particular component on that.

And lastly, this year, we're also have a doctor, Lord George Vanska, who is a specialist in human trafficking locally, statewide and internationally.

And we'll be doing a workshop on how fatherhood is actually a protective factor that helps reduce human trafficking, both sexual and labor and other means of human trafficking, which Kentucky has its share of challenges with.

And so we'll be doing that and having a special session with her to discuss strategizing around that, not just in Kentucky, but across federal regions.