The Ohio University Dean of Health Sciences and Professions received a $1.5 million grant last month to research young fathers and their relationships with their children.
Ethan Durham, an Ohio University junior studying political science, said he likes to try to find the upside to every situation.
On a weekly basis, he works about 20 hours in retail at Sherwin Williams, takes six hours of classes, and spends the rest of his time raising his 2-year-old daughter, Florence.
“If you embrace it, it’s one of the most important things you can do in life is be a parent,” he said.
Durham didn’t plan to have a child his freshman year of college and he is no longer with her mother, but he said his Appalachian roots made him want to continue to have a consistent presence in her life.
Randy Leite, dean of the College of Health Sciences and Professions, said for children born to unwed parents, having a father who is emotionally involved in the child’s life provides a “huge benefit.”
Over the next five years, Leite will be studying the relationships between young fathers, like Durham, and their children thanks to a grant received last month from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Leite will study the effects of a program called “New Beginnings for New Fathers,” administered by the Ohio Commission on Fatherhood. That program will begin next year, and will provide parenting classes and job training to young fathers in Franklin, Clark, Cuyahoga, Hamilton and Montgomery counties.
“The whole set of programs are focused on fathers of newborn children to try to get fathers engaged positively in the lives of their kids,” he said.
Overall, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will be providing $10 million for the project, including $1.5 million to OU for Leite to conduct his studies, and the rest for the commission to fund their program.
Leite’s studies will serve as a third party assessment of the program’s effectiveness.
“We’ll be getting a chance to work with fathers from five locations,” he said. “We’ll also be able to track these fathers and their kids for five years. … To be able to work with kids from infancy until the point when they’re at school, there’s not been a study like that.”
Kimberly Dent, the executive director of the commission, said the grant program was “very, very competitive.”
Members of the commission will head to Washington D.C. in early December to meet with members of Health and Human Services and get the final plans for their program approved.
Dent said the main focus of the program was to help fathers 16- to- 24 years old. It will also provide services to reduce the high rate of infant mortality among out-of-wedlock births by educating fathers about the importance of not smoking and safe sleep environments.
She said the program focuses on strategies like making sure the father graduates from high school and is able to support himself.
“(We’re trying to) implement more proactive services to young fathers … so that when he reaches his 30s and 40s he has those tools and he has that information and he has that knowledge.”
Durham, who is already developing those tools by working and going to school, said the experience of being a young father can be draining, but it has helped having his friends and family supporting him.
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Leite said he hopes this program will provide some of that support for other fathers.
"You can’t give up hope," Durham said. "It's really really hard, and I understand that. The biggest thing is you have a child to take care of."
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