Red Cliff Band —
An Innovative Fatherhood Initiative

by Carolina Alvarez with Rob Goslin

Launching the Project
“Each family has their own way of doing things, and staff has to respect that. Since no parent- child bond is the same, it is important to respect families and recognize their individuality, ”says Rob Goslin, a tribal historian and spiritual leader of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa (Ojibwe) Indians. Their reservation is located on 11,000 acres of Lake Superior shoreline at the northernmost tip of Wisconsin.

As someone committed to community building and wellness, Rob was a likely choice for becoming Director of the fatherhood demonstration program in the Red Cliff Early Head Start program. Referred to as the Fatherhood Initiative, this project focused on staff training in a parent curriculum and partnering with other agencies for service delivery.

Touchpoints
Before Rob’s involvement in the Red Cliff project, he attended comprehensive training on the Touchpoints model, an approach developed by the Brazelton Touchpoints Center in Boston to build healthy families through enhanced relationships between parents and providers. “Touchpoints encourages professionals to focus on the strengths of family members rather than their deficits,” according to Rob. His familiarity with and respect for the Touchpoints model and the fact that Touchpoints parallels Red Cliff values and culture affected the decision of the planning committee to choose this curriculum model for the demonstration fatherhood project.

Touchpoints can be implemented in any setting where the staff works with children. It gives professionals effective and proven tools to support infants and parents at the beginning of their lives together and continuing through the early years.

The planning group for the Fatherhood Initiative, with Rob at the head, decided to implement Touchpoints by providing 16 hours of training to 3 target groups: Early Childhood Center staff, Community Health Center staff, and other tribal service providers, including the Bayfield County Birth to Three Program. Over the course of three years, the Fatherhood Initiative has trained 80 service providers to use the Touchpoints model. Rob notes, “One of the most important parts of implementing the Touchpoints curriculum was that it required collaboration with other agencies in order to provide continuity of care to our EHS/HS families.”

The entire EHS staff was trained in the Touchpoints curriculum, which stressed looking at the family as a whole, establishing a relationship with parents, involving both parents in the child’s life, and observing how the parents’ relationship with their child affects the child’s development and reactions to situations in the environment. The staff also was trained to trust fathers, and “encouraged to engage in self-introspection and to value parents and their culture,” says Rob.

The solid framework that developed as a result of this careful planning and collaboration strengthened other initiatives to support families.

Innovative Father Involvement Strategies
“When we started this project, father involvement in the Early Head Start and Head Start programs was minimal to non-existent,” Rob states. “The program did not even include fathers in the initial enrollment process.” He further explains, “Fathers have felt excluded since the beginning; it seemed like the staff was only interested in working with the child and the mother.”

The first step Rob took to address this problem was to include a father assessment in the enrollment packet. The assessment enabled program staff to identify fathers’ strengths and needs. Mothers were happy that the fathers started to get involved. Rob emphasizes the importance of offering fathers the opportunity to participate in interesting activities that were father-friendly. “When organizing activities for fathers, we need to be creative. We had to go beyond our traditional role when working with dads.” Involving the Red Cliff fathers was done in a variety of ways. The project designed father- oriented activities that were sometimes only for fathers, others that included fathers and their children, and some that involved the family.

Fathers only
One of the first steps Rob took was to invite interested fathers to visit the recreation center and the gym weekly. Here, fathers developed relationships with one another. This was a critical step in building trust and willingness to participate further.

These activities offered the opportunity for fathers to talk with other fathers without other family members present. This also provided time to reflect about the Four Hills of Life. For Red Cliff Indians, this term refers to the four stages of growth: infancy, teenage years, adult, and elder years. Fathers discussed the stages with one another and what each stage meant to them personally.

Fathers with children
To engage their children, fathers participated in weekly pow-wows at the center teaching boys how to use the drum and girls how to dance. These activities helped develop father-child bonds, taught children how to follow rules and take turns, and developed children’s pre-literacy skills. During the pow-wows, fathers encouraged children to stimulate their vocal cords by singing. By emulating all the sounds and words that the adults used, the children enlarged their English and native language vocabulary. The pow-wow also promoted the customs and values of the tribe, such as respect and generosity.

Rob notes, “No matter what issues the fathers have, they are always loving fathers.” He offered them the chance to demonstrate this affection through an activity called Sharing Their Children. Fathers sat in a circle with their children and talked about their unique fatherchild relationships, how they had developed these close bonds, and what they valued most about these ties.

Fathers and families
Pizza nights offered opportunities for families to socialize in a friendly setting and to enjoy meeting one another.

Results
As a result of the Fatherhood Initiative, those who participated in the Touchpoints training now have a better understanding of the stages of growth and development in children birth to three years of age. The training also offered parents and providers the tools to work through challenging stages of a young child’s life and to promote optimal child and family development. The project also provided consistent guidance and support to families through the tribal health care and social service system as added benefits for families participating in the Red Cliff demonstration project.

The successful Red Cliff father involvement initiative led to stronger families and enthusiastic father involvement. By offering activities that were culturally relevant and sensitive to individual and family needs, the project gained the trust of participating fathers. This project is a model for programs planning father-friendly and culturally appropriate activities for fathers while sharing important information about early childhood and offering support for families.

Carolina Alvarez is a Head Start Fellow. T: 202-205- 8602; E:calvarez@acf.hhs.gov. Rob Goslin is the Director of the Fatherhood Initiatives at Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewas. T: 715-779-3938 E: redcliff_fatherhood@yahoo.com