Divided Board OKs Grant Application

A grant application for a program teaching incarcerated youths how to be good fathers was approved by the Ventura County Board of Education, despite opposition from two conservative trustees.

Board members Wendy Larner and Angela Miller voted Monday night against seeking money for the one-year, Young Men as Fathers program, but trustees Marty Bates, John McGarry and Al Rosen approved the application. Rosen’s absence for medical reasons during the last board meeting left the grant caught in a 2-2 tie.

If the district secures the $60,000 grant from the California Youth Authority, the program would serve 250 youths locked up or on probation, setting them up with mentors and teaching them about the role of fathers as well as parenting skills, such as diaper changing.

The program for boys ages 11 to 18 is designed to break the cycle of teenagers becoming fathers and to help them understand what parenting is all about, McGarry said.

“Their fathers were probably very young when they were born as well,” he said. “It’s going on throughout the U.S. and certainly well known that in gang-oriented activities, young men think it’s important to provide offspring because they believe death is imminent. We have to break the cycle.”

Miller, however, did not approve of the program, saying she had concerns that Young Men as Fathers would not teach sexual restraint.

“It was giving a lot of information on how to use the system to get baby-sitters and day-care and help from the community rather than how to achieve abstinence and maintain it,” she said.

After listening to a representative of City Impact, an Oxnard-based youth outreach group previously known as Youth For Christ, four of the board members voted to appoint a representative from the nonprofit group to the advisory committee for Young Men as Fathers. City Impact offers a mentoring program that sets up students with adults who can serve as role models.

Rosen, who was concerned that the group members’ Christian background might allow their religious beliefs to seep into the program, was outvoted by the rest of the board members, who said the nonprofit group would be able to separate church from state and had a good track record for helping youths.