Williams to Kick Off Fatherhood Initiative
Effort to Provide Health and Employment Services, Parenting Support for Absent Dads
By Sewell Chan | Washington Post | May 28, 2026

Mayor Anthony A. Williams plans to announce today an initiative to help absent fathers play a more active role in their children's lives, adding the District to a social policy movement, strongly supported by the Bush administration, that views the absence of fathers as one of the greatest challenges to children's well-being.

Williams (D) is scheduled to announce the D.C. Fatherhood Initiative during his keynote speech at the fourth annual International Fatherhood Conference, which began yesterday and ends Wednesday, and is being co-hosted this year by the District government.

The initiative will offer health screenings, job services and parenting support to eligible fathers. The effort mostly entails better coordination of existing services provided by the city government or its private partners, but Williams also will pledge $1 million in grants to nonprofit groups to deliver "father-focused services."

The mayor also plans to establish a Mayor's Fatherhood Advisory Council to "reemphasize the positive role of fathering," according to a draft copy of the executive order creating the body.

The efforts represent new attention to demographic trends that are especially pronounced in the District and other large cities. In 1999, 62 percent of births in the District were to unmarried women, compared with the national average of 33 percent.

A so-called fatherhood movement, which has gathered steam under the Bush administration, emphasizes the rights of non-custodial parents and the need for employment and education programs to help fathers pay child support and be involved in their children's lives. Federal officials have proposed that states experiment with programs to promote two-parent families, such as marital counseling or parenting classes.

Although many are skeptical of the government's ability to encourage marriage, most experts agree that the 1996 welfare overhaul focused on pushing single mothers into the labor force and paid less attention to fathers. Some advocates want the reauthorization of the welfare law, which has passed in the House but not the Senate, to include job programs for low-income fathers and include men in the work requirements that single mothers must meet.

Ronald B. Mincy, a professor of social policy at Columbia University who is speaking at the conference, said his research found that the sustained economic boom of the 1990s drew many less-educated black women into the labor market but had a much smaller impact on unskilled black men.

He cited two reasons: the high rate of incarceration among young black men and the disincentive to work posed by high child-support obligations. Many young black men, Mincy said, owe more in back child support than they can make in a year. The economic prospects for low-income fathers is a key topic of the conference, organized by the National Center for Strategic Nonprofit Planning and Community Leadership.

Mincy criticized a crackdown, announced by Williams on May 16, that will threaten jail time for District parents who have not paid child support for more than a year or owe more than $5,000 in back payments.

"Cracking down on child support enforcement is one of the most politically popular things a politician can do, but we have to be proactive in getting fathers into employment and dealing with the barriers that prevent them" from working, Williams said.

Keith O. Cross, an official in the D.C. Department of Human Services who is overseeing the mayor's initiative, acknowledged that the crackdown might appear to contradict the mayor's push to support fathers, but he said the new initiative will encourage absent fathers, including men returning from prison, to visit their children, whether in private or supervised settings, without fear of punishment.

Cross emphasized that the mayor's initiative will not push couples to get or stay married. "We're going to focus on co-parenting," he said. "The elimination of father-absence is what we're focused on."

Carlton L. Bradshaw Jr., a father of three and a trainer for Strive D.C., a job preparation program for adults with few skills, called the initiative a good step. "We have fathers that want to be in their children's lives, but the mothers don't understand and the fathers don't have the money to support their children," he said. "They get really frustrated. A lot of times they have no one to turn to for answers."




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