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Welcome Baby, a Durham County Cooperative Extension program, has launched a new fatherhood initiative offering parenting training workshops targeted to reach fathers. Welcome Baby has partnered with the Exchange Family Center to provide the training designed to help fathers improve connections with their children and families.
Welcome Baby has served Durham families for the last 36 years by offering early intervention, maternal and child health, and literacy workshops. In those years, there has never been a workshop just for fathers. The new initiative is in response to feedback from fathers on finding safe, welcoming, and judgment-free spaces to sit, learn, and exchange ideas with peers.
The first workshop series, the Nurturing Parenting Program, for the father initiative was offered on September 5, 2023. The Nurturing Parenting Program workshop was offered in Spanish and co-facilitated by Welcome Baby’s Parent Educator Alfonso Blanco and Exchange Family Center’s Parenting Coach and Family Therapist Matias Murano. Future trainings will be offered in both English and Spanish.
The Nurturing Fathers Program is a 13-week evidence- based curriculum designed to support fathers with their parenting journey and coach them on having healthy family relationships. Fathers meet once a week for two hours to discuss and address topics such as: the root of fathering, nurturing ourselves/our children, balancing work, and fathering, and more. To quote President Barack Obama, in his Message to Fathers, “we need to realize that we are our children’s first and best teachers.”
The Welcome Baby program provides parents with positive parenting tools, on how to build a stronger bond with their children, reduce Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and build school readiness skills. The program is made possible by funds from Durham County and Durham’s Partnership for Children a Smart Start initiative.
For more information about the new father initiative or the Welcome Baby Program, contact Patience Mukelabai at 919-560-7392 or email at pmukelabai@dconc.gov.
Source: PEO Productions / PEO Productions
