Fathering Matters: Barriers, Opportunities, and the Importance of Father Engagement

Join us for an important conversation about the barriers, opportunities, and importance of father engagement.

Nucha Isarowong, PhD, LICSW, IMH-E^®, Director of the Advanced Clinical Training (ACT) Program at the Barnard Center for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health at the University of Washington, will join us for a powerful exploration of how fathering matters.

The contributions of fathers to their children's development are well documented and often misconstrued, marginalized, or unacknowledged, leaving male parents without appropriate or adequate resources and/or responses to their needs.

Despite the evidence on the importance of fathers and father-figures in the lives of children, as co-parents and as part of a broader caregiving system along with mothers, mother-figures, grandparents, and other parenting and caregiving-figures, policies, practices, and programmatic changes have been slow to catch up.

This presentation reflects on the importance of father in the lives of their children as well as in the services with and for children and explores the barriers and opportunities to engage fathers in IECMH services.