Our Served Population
Age & Gender
Fathers’ UpLift serves fathers who desire to overcome challenges and become a positive presence in their children’s lives. Roughly 75% of those we serve are men and boys.
However, we also provide mental health and therapy services to women (25% of those we serve), typically single mothers raising boys and girls without a fathers’ presence.
Additionally, of those we serve, not all are adults. We provide services to children and youth (ages 5-24) who reside in absent-father households, providing them with therapy, support, and father-figures.
Race
Central to Fathers’ UpLift’s mission is a priority placed on making mental health accessible and familiar for minority and low-income communities.
Through intentional staffing and an “on-the-ground-and-in-the-community” approach, we’re able to overcome barriers of stigma and geographic accessibility in providing services.
We believe that therapy and coaching services are most effective when staff share cultures, backgrounds, and experiences with the population they’re serving. Because of this belief, the majority of FUL staff are people of color, including both Black and Hispanic coaches, making our services accessible to both English-speaking and Spanish-speaking populations in our community and maximizing feelings of trust and familiarity.
Our Population’s Barriers
In America today, there are significant compounding racial disparities in mental health, incarceration, and father absence.
Mental Health
According to a 2015 NCHS data brief, approximately 8.5% of men suffer from daily feelings of depression or anxiety. However, only about 1/4 of Black and Hispanic men with daily feelings of depression or anxiety had utilized mental health treatments, versus nearly half of their white counterparts. Mental health as an institution in the US today, drastically underserved black youth and adults.
Incarceration
Incarceration is another well known issue of racial disparity. Roughly 1.5% of Blacks and 0.76% Hispanics are incarcerated, far more than the rate of 0.26% of Whites (DOJ).
Father Absence
As for fatherhood, fatherlessness likewise reflects racial inequities. Roughly 14.5% and 23.8% of Black and Hispanic fathers see their children less than once a month, versus 8.6% of Caucasian fathers (Pew Research).
All of these issues compound and interconnect in effecting negative outcomes. The majority of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated men are fathers, and many grew up with absent fathers themselves. A 2002 DOJ survey revealed that 39% of jail inmates were raised in father-absent households. Father absence itself increases children’s odds of behavioral disorders, crime, and future incarceration. When mental health goes untreated, it also results in negative outcomes that all-too-often lead to incarceration and/or father absence.
These three issues, mental health, incarceration, and father absence, all intertwine. The opportunity in this is that addressing any of these three issues has reverberating effects through the other two. Addressing them all together can change generations.