WORKING WITH NATIVE AMERICAN FATHERS

By Cecelia Godfrey

Many of the programs in the American Indian/Alaska Native Program Branch are implementing mental health services for children and families. The services range from mental health professionals on staff to partnerships with local health departments and mental health agencies. The Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Early Head Start is attempting to meet the mental health needs of families through a new Fatherhood Project.

The Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa live on the Red Cliff Reservation in northwest Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Superior. Young families must overcome problems with unemployment, financial difficulties, alcohol and substance abuse, lack of education and job skills training. Unemployment on the reservation is 40%, and 33% of those families who work are employed in jobs that pay well below the Federal poverty level. Twenty-six percent of births at Red Cliff are to teenage mothers. Young fathers are often not present in the home and are not actively involved in rearing their children. They also struggle with cultural heritage and role model issues.

Although it is a small reservation, the tribe has a Head Start program, an Early Head Start program, a health clinic, a youth services program, and a community center. These programs serve 95 children and their families on the Red Cliff Reservation. The Red Cliff Early Childhood Center (ECC) serves all 75 children through Early Head Start, Head Start, or Child Care. All age-eligible children on the reservation and all tribal families within ten miles of the reservation may apply to one of the programs at the Early Childhood Center. The Center provides comprehensive services to pregnant women
and children birth to five through strong collaborations and community partnerships.

Traditionally, the mother and her family are responsible for child rearing among the Red Cliff Chippewas. Through programs like Head Start and Early Head Start however, families
recognize the need to involve fathers more meaningfully in the lives of their children. Unfortunately, there are few role models because fathers have not been involved in child rearing for many generations.

Young fathers, who are often struggling with issues of survival, have not had an easy transition to active involvement in raising their children. They often feel guilty for not being involved in their children’s lives, but have little access to opportunities to improve involvement. Given this history, the Red Cliff Early Head Start applied for funds for a Fatherhood Initiative to help meet the needs of the fathers on the reservation.

Dee Gokee-Rindal, the Red Cliff Early Childhood Center Director, has worked for several years to develop mental health services to meet the needs of the families at Red Cliff. The goals for serving families at Red Cliff Early Childhood Center include increasing social competence of children; enhancing a child’s social, emotional, cognitive, and physical development; supporting parents as primary nurturers of their children; and providing continuity of care for children and families. The program has established partnerships with the Red Cliff Community Health Center and the Bayfield County Birth to Three Program to provide support services to families. In addition, the program has been working with a mental health consultant for the last two years.

Dawn Nixon is completing her work in a doctoral program and provides services as the Early Head Start/Head Start mental health professional to families 10-15 hours per week. She provides therapeutic intervention on-site for children and meets with families on-site or in their home, depending on their preference. Dawn has worked with the program to try to identify additional support for families.

Red Cliff was recently awarded a Fatherhood Demonstration Grant. The grant will utilize the Touchpoints program developed by Dr. T. Berry Brazelton (1992) to strengthen the parenting of young parents, with a focus on young fathers. The goal of this grant is to work with young fathers to increase their involvement in the lives of their young children. Although both Dee and Dawn are working on this project, they are currently in the process of hiring a father to coordinate the grant.
Specific components of the grant will consist of—

• Prenatal education that will include fathers;
  
• Newborn assessment;
  
• Home health care visits;
  
• Postnatal support groups for mothers and fathers;
  
• Home health visits through Indian Health Services.

The Red Cliff vision of Touch-points includes a community-wide approach. Staff from the Health Center and other community agencies will be trained along with the Early Childhood Center staff. Five staff members and community services providers attended training at the Brazelton Institute in January 2001 and returned to the program to train other staff. The goal of the program is to create a new tradition where men become equal partners in raising their children—blending Chippewa traditions with the Touchpoints program.

Touchpoints will be a program-wide initiative, working with families in both center-based and home-based settings. The work of the Touchpoints trainers will increase staff and family knowledge of child development, help young parents understand the behaviors and cues of babies from their first day home through their infancy, and work with pregnant mothers and their partners to build a working relationship that will carry them through the Head Start years.

The goal of the Red Cliff Early Childhood Center is to work with families in a respectful manner at all times, understanding culture and heritage and integrating the values of the culture into their work with families. The fatherhood grant is one of many initiatives the program will utilize to support families in their community.

References

Brazelton, T.B. 1992. Touchpoints: The essential reference. Reading, MA: Addison- Wesley/Lawrence.

Cecelia Godfrey is a Senior Early Childhood Associate at the American Indians Alaska Natives Program Branch. T: 202-401-5140; E: cgodfrey@acf.hhs.gov.