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JUNE 2005

A Celebration of Father’s Day
Remembering Fathers in Different Ways

By Richard Kagan

Fathers Day is just around the corner. For some families it will be a happy day. For some fathers it will be a lonely day. Dad may be paying child support because of a court order, unable to see his kids.

To address the issues of young dads with children, who are paying child-support, the Male Development and Empowerment Center of Medgar Evers College held a workshop on “Fathers, We Stretch Our Hands To You.” There are 400,000 cases that deal with child support in New York City. According to Judith Albury, Director of Administration for Children Services Child Support Enforcement/Paternity and Community Outreach Unit, 65 percent of dads do pay their court-ordered child support payments on a regular basis.

Ms. Albury and several colleagues from her office, joined Alicia Crowe, attorney and advocate for fathers rights along with Eric Leggette, founder of Fathers with Voices, Inc., and Efrain Rodriguez, President of New York State Fathers’ Rights Association for a workshop designed to inform and empower single fathers who desire to not only be financially responsible for the children, but to be a caring dad as well.

Peter Holoman, Director of the MDEC at Medgar Evers College notes that of the 5300 students on campus only 1250 are male. Of those, 30 to 40 percent have children.

This workshop was held to offer information that a father needs to successfully deal with the Family Courts, and how to navigate through the Administration for Children Services.

“We have a lot of fathers who do pay and don’t see their children,” Albury said. Dads who are willing to own up to being financially responsible and yet being unable to visit children can have a significant emotional impact on the father. Both Leggette and Rodriguez, note that fathers can get depressed and suicidal when being prevented by a resentful mother, still hurting from the emotional toll of a broken relationship. Leggette says fathers need to learn “how to protect themselves from being victims in the system.”

Those fathers who attended the workshop were advised to keep records of court dates, receipts of purchases made on behalf of the child, and any record of financial change that might affect the status of child support payments. Crowe, who works with fathers in child-support and visitation matters in upstate New York, stressed that it is very important to establish paternity and that a father should not take this lightly.

Dwight Boone, 34, is the father of four children by three different mothers. Boone works as a laborer at Medgar Evers College. He loves his children and supports all of them financially either through agreements with their respective mothers, or by compliance with court-mandated payments of child support. He has been dealing with the child-support system for years. He has recently established a joint custody arrangement with the mother of two of his daughters, Nahketah, 12 and Nadira, 11 where the children would stay with him half of the week. Boone is now going to court in hopes that this plan will be approved. Boone also has a son, Enrique, 7, with whom he shares a financial arrangement with his mother.

“Money is not an issue when it comes to my kids,” says Boone. Boone says when he goes to Family Court on child support matters, the Judge assumes he is a “deadbeat” dad. So Boone brings his receipts and documentation of money he has spent on his two daughters to counter the speculation.#

For more information call 1-888-208-4485

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