Focus: HOPE recently hosted its Fatherhood Conference: Our Mental Health is our Wealth.
The non-profit focused on topics such as mental health, overall health & wellness, family life, child welfare & support services.
The non-profit organization aimed to address challenges fathers face at home, work, and life as well as introduce the community to Focus: HOPE’s early learning and fatherhood programs.
“Most men think being a protector is protecting the woman or protecting the household,” said Waymond Hayes, Director of Focus: HOPE Early Learning Program. “There was a woman in the room who broke it down to us and stated, ‘for her, a protector is someone who protects their heart’. So what we’ve been doing is hosting barbershop talks to and giving men strategies on how to be a co-parent, how to work within a blended family, how to get your child support arrangements.”
Focus: HOPE’s long-term goal is to increase male involvement and to offer wrap around services that include fatherhood engagement and helping men provide the 3 P’s to their families. The 3 P’s represent being PRESENT, acting as a PROVIDER, and a PROTECTOR.
Marvin Cotton Jr., author and motivational speaker was one of the invited guest speakers. Cotton spent nearly 20 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit and uses his story to inspire other Black men and fathers as he did at the FOCUS: Hope Fatherhood Conference.
“It may make start off as a moment but then that moment turns into a lifetime,” Cotton said. “I made the choice and the decision to become better and build myself up. I knew the way I went into prison, I wouldn’t survive that circumstance if I stayed the same. I had to grow. I had to have faith in a higher power and in GOD in order to reach what I couldn’t see.”
The conference was a space for Black men and fathers to encourage and uplift one another. Men were inspired, motivated, and challenged to become better versions of themselves.
“Men need a safe space where there are no current mandates or requirements,” said Andre Ebron, President and CEO, Ebron & Associates, moderator of the event. “In this space, people were just able to unpack, just to sit down, breathe, hear from men who sit in various industries. We are all men who want to make a positive impact in the lives of our children and families.”
The conference panelists also included Dawad Abdur-Rahmaan, Herbal Health Practitioner and Dave Campbell, Field President of AAA, and Dr. Eddie Connor, Author and Speaker.