Fathers need to take their place in society, says family therapist

WESTERN BUREAU:

THE WESTERN Jamaica-based Family and Parenting Centre is making plans, in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), to target men as positive role models and leaders in their families and communities, and to direct young men away from crime and violence.

While no specifics on those plans were immediately forthcoming, Dr Beverly Scott, executive director of the Family and Parenting Centre, told The Gleaner that men from all walks of life will be targeted for the partnership effort between the two agencies.

“We need the fathers in the families more than ever to help to train the boys, so they can take their rightful place in society. We have another project that is being approved now by the USAID, and a key component of that project is co-parenting,” said Scott, who is also a noted family therapist in western Jamaica.

“The next project will be coming out within weeks or months, and we are going to go all the way out to get the men. In that proposal, we have stated that we are going to go into the streets, the hills and valleys, the bars and on the football and cricket fields, and everywhere the men are, to motivate them to be part of that project. Men will definitely have to be in that project,” Scott added.

She was speaking in the immediate aftermath of a recently concluded eight-week violence-prevention programme in Flanker, St James, which has often been categorised as one of the parish’s most notorious crime spots.

The programme, which was sponsored by the USAID and is part of a five-year commitment to violence reduction across Jamaica, saw 15 youthand 15 parents participating in various activities geared towards learning violence-prevention and dispute resolution strategies. The graduation ceremony took place on Tuesday, March 15, and saw at least three young men among the youth participants; but curiously, there were no men among the participating parents.

Scott said that there is a need for men to be empowered as positive leaders, lest they bring down their families and communities through the wrong influence.

“Men are seen as leaders, and if men lead the community down the stream into crime and violence, that is it for the community; the community is lost. Men are strong and powerful and they are the backbone of their families, so if they take up the responsibility of leading the family and community in the way men ought to, then we will have a better society,” said Scott.

ABSENCE

That viewpoint is shared by Paul Teeple, chief of party for Democracy International for USAID’s Community Violence Prevention Programme in Jamaica, who said that statistically speaking, men are responsible for more of the country’s violent incidents.

“We know that in order to help reduce violence and establish healthy and safe communities, we need the involvement of men. We need the involvement of parents, and of young men, because, unfortunately, we know they are statistically responsible for more of the violence,” said Teeple.

“I would say the absence of positive male role models is a contributing factor to the violence that we experience here (in Jamaica). More importantly, it is one of the factors that we can address and improve on,” Teeple added. “Young people need a father, and we all need males in our lives to affirm our identities in a positive way. Our communities and families are healthier when we have those positive male role models.”

According to the Statistical Institute of Jamaica, between 2013 and 2017, on average, men were nine times more likely to be victims of murder than females.

The National Crime Victimization Survey of 2016 found that males were more likely to have been arrested at some point in their lives, compared to females (14.6 per cent for males versus 3.5 per cent for females), and were more likely to have been convicted of a crime (4.2 per cent versus 0.8 per cent).