Head Start To Absentee Dads: Please Come Back
EnlargeSam Sanders/NPR
Rickie Knox (left) meets with Keith Young at New Haven's Head Start center. Knox comes here almost every day to be with his two grandchildren.
It's a typical day at a Head Start center near downtown New Haven, Conn., and restless 3- and 4-year-olds squirm and bounce on a colorful shaggy rug vying for their teacher's attention. Down the hallway several women make their way to a parenting class, stopping to marvel at a 4-month-old baby.
What you don't see, says the center's Keith Young, is men, fathers.
"Head Start is not just about the child going to school, not just about the child. It's about the whole family and that male is a part of that, so let's put them back in the picture and see what happens," Young says.
Young is the center's male involvement coordinator and community outreach partner liaison, a complicated title for a man with a simple message about fathers.
"We want to be
