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About 75 people gathered together on January 13, 2000 to listen and to talk about Hispanic(1) fathers, their role in promoting educational excellence and what communities are doing and can do more of to support Hispanic fathers and families. It was an exciting day with old friends and new partners engaged in animated conversation and with hope for the future. The day was full of ideas and at the end of the day, there seemed to be unanimous agreement that the dialogue needed to be continued. With participants from all over the country, representing a wide array of Hispanic communities, more time was needed to learn about each others work and to build strategies for program development that reflect the strengths of Hispanic fathers and their families and the experience of programs serving Hispanic communities.
This report is part of the HHS commitment to continue the dialogue. The report serves three purposes:
This report is organized into seven sections and three appendices. After this Purpose section, the next section of the report, Educational Achievement: A Key Concern for Hispanic Communities, written by staff from the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, provides an explanation of why there is a need for Hispanic communities to focus on improving the educational achievement of Hispanic children, youth and adults. The third section of the report, Programs for Hispanic Fathers: Perspectives from the Research, written by Laura Vasquez when she was a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Fellow at HHS, provides an overview of what can be learned from research about designing programs for Hispanic fathers. The fourth section of the report, Learning From our Partners, is a summary of the January 13, 2000 dialogue, convened by Kevin Thurm, Deputy Secretary of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and facilitated by Patricia Montoya, Commissioner of the Administration for Children, Youth and Families, within the Administration for Children and Families, HHS and Jerry Tello, Director, National Latino Fatherhood and Family Institute. Participants in the dialogue included community-based providers of services for Hispanic fathers, national Hispanic organizations, literacy programs, advocates for fathers and fatherhood programs, and federal staff. The fifth section of the report, Continuing the Dialogue, identifies actions taken by HHS subsequent to the January meeting to promote Hispanic fathers increased involvement in educational achievement and to support programs that provide services to Hispanic fathers and families. In the sixth section, Dialogue Participants, the reader will find the names and contact information for invited participants and the federal staff partners in the effort. In the last section, Resources for Serving Hispanic Fathers, organizations, agencies, service providers, and available materials are listed that may be helpful to communities designing and implementing programs for Hispanic fathers and their families. This section is provided for the readers convenience and does not imply any endorsement of the organizations or their services by the conveners of the Dialogue. The three appendices provide some short government reports that will be helpful to service providers working with Hispanic fathers and families. These appendices contain information on the Hispanic population from the U. S. Census Bureau; on strategies for working with Hispanic parents and children in the school and early childhood education environment from the ERIC clearinghouses; and information on the importance of involving fathers in childrens education from the National Center for Education Statistics, Department of Education.
A copy of this document is available on the Department of Health and Human Services fatherhood website: The website address is http://fatherhood.hhs.gov/hispanic01/index.htm.
1. In this report the terms Hispanic and Latino are used interchangeably. The Department of Health and Human Services tends to use the term Hispanic. Some dialogue participants used the term Latino, some used Hispanic, and many used both. No distinction is intended to be conveyed by the use of either term.
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Last updated: 03/12/02