Champions of Change

Champions of Change Blog

  • Got Women?

    Posted by Dr. Stacey Bouchet on June 13, 2012 at 11:27 AM EDT

    The White House Office of Public Engagement and Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships honors 10 individuals who are doing tremendous work in the fields of fatherhood and low-income men and boys. Because of her work in this field Dr. Stacey Bouchet is being recognized as a Champion of Change.

    Women In Fatherhood, Inc. (WIFI) is a social justice organization working to break down structural and relational barriers preventing fathers and men from positively contributing to families and communities.  Our unique contribution is that we do this from the perspective of women.

    Research, including WIFI’s qualitative research with women in diverse communities across the country, dispels many fallacies and shows that:

    • Most fathers – regardless of demographics or circumstance – want to play a positive role in the lives of their children, and do so when they have the supports and resources they need.
    • Most mothers want fathers involved in their children’s lives, even if the parents are no longer romantically involved, because they realize fathers matter.
    • Virtually all parents want what is best for their children.

    The women we engage overwhelmingly express the need for fathers to be involved emotionally and physically in the lives of children, not just financially. We recognize any woman (or man) who is raising a child alone shoulders an incredible responsibility. Some of these women are overwhelmed; some express anger and frustration toward individual men. Most express anxiety about the future of their children and their communities in the absence of positive father and male involvement.  All of these voices and concerns have become the platform for WIFI’s work.

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  • Let Your Heart Guide Your Service

    Posted by Michelle Foster on June 13, 2012 at 11:21 AM EDT

    The White House Office of Public Engagement and Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships honors 10 individuals who are doing tremendous work in the fields of fatherhood and low-income men and boys. Because of her work in this field Michelle Mickle Foster is being recognized as a Champion of Change.

    My journey into my current career as a non-profit CEO was via a very non-traditional route.  I was always good at mathematics and science in high school. A career in chemical engineering was a natural choice for me.  Soon after graduating from the City College of New York, I found myself at a company in Charleston, West Virginia.  Little did I know the life changes that lay ahead!

    While working, I became an active volunteer at Ferguson Memorial Baptist Church, a primarily African-American church, located in a poor section of the largest county in the state. During this time, I stirred up skills that I didn’t even know that I had within myself, always being encouraged along the way by my Pastor.  It got to the point where I couldn’t wait for 5:00 PM, so that I could leave my engineering job to volunteer at the church with literacy and other programs that benefitted children.

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  • Working with the Strength of Fathers to Build Stronger Kids

    Posted by J. Michael Hall on June 13, 2012 at 11:07 AM EDT

    The White House Office of Public Engagement and Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships honors 10 individuals who are doing tremendous work in the fields of fatherhood and low-income men and boys. Because of his work in this field J. Michael Hall is being recognized as a Champion of Change.

    In workshops and conferences I introduce myself as a “recovering” middle school principal. Even though I only spent four years of my ten years as a public school educator as a principal, being a campus leader has changed my life forever. In January of 1999 I held my first “Dad’s Day” at Loflin Middle School. Something happened on that day that changed my life forever. As I spoke to dads and told them what the research said about what could happen to their kids if they were not involved, it hit me right between the eyes. I realized that as a young principal and a father to two young children, I was spending more time raising their kids than I was raising my own. It was devastating and liberating all at the same time. Two weeks after that father’s program, I resigned from my job effective at the end of the school year and returned to the classroom and to my family.

    In 2003 I founded Strong Fathers-Strong Families and over the past nine years have worked face to face with over 110,000 fathers in schools and Head Starts in over 30 states.

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  • A Veterans Path

    Posted by Cassaundra St. John on May 24, 2012 at 11:30 AM EDT

    Cassaundra St. John is being recognized as a Champion of Change for her dedication to service and her continued support for fellow women veterans.

    It is a great honor to be recognized as a Champion of Change for providing resources to our Female Veterans and Women in Military Families. This honor is a testament to women of the eras and branches who have served our country-in and beside the uniform. It is not only my passion to work with women in military families; but my privilege to have the honor of working with those who sacrifice and serve so that the rest of the nation can pursue the American Dream.

    When I completed my Active Duty service in the Air Force, I anticipated a world of opportunities. I quickly learned that my service was not enough to get me to the places I wanted to be, so I begin to pursue a higher education. Going to school full-time, working full-time and raising two toddlers was not an easy feat-but I gave myself no other option. My path was clear and direct. I thought this was the path to a bright future. . 

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  • Smoothing the Transition

    Posted by Hernán Luis y Prado on May 24, 2012 at 11:20 AM EDT

    Hernán Luis y Prado is being recognized as a Champion of Change for his dedication to service and his continued support for efforts to boost employment for fellow veterans.

    Transitioning from military service to civilian life can be challenging in the best of times. For the estimated two million veterans who served a tour -- or multiple tours -- of duty in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there are even more hurdles than usual. Chief among them is the economy, which has helped drive the jobless rate amongst those veterans to more than 12 percent in 2011-- well above the rate of the general population. It's even worse for veterans between 18 and 34 years old; their jobless rate neared 30 percent in 2011. Other factors that come into play include medical advances that are resulting in greater survivability on the battlefield -- and more “Wounded Warriors” (severely injured service members) returning home.

    I made a commitment to myself on the night I ran into a young marine, John, who had served with me in Iraq. He had nothing when he came back. He had a young bride-to-be and was waiting at a Navy medical center to transition home. Every week they would tell him he was going home the following week . . . this went on for months and months. It was incredibly painful and stressful on him. For people like John, it can be awful to go from knowing where the danger is to having complete uncertainty over your future, not knowing if the service is going to keep you or not, not knowing what you are transitioning to, and knowing you are unprepared. It was a tremendous ordeal for John and he handled it well -- but many of our other friends in similar situations committed suicide. I knew there had to be a better way. At first, I opened my house, garage and back yard to friends so they could come over during their medical rehabilitations and work with my metal fabrication and woodworking tools.

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  • Helping Veterans and Businesses Succeed Together

    Posted by John Reynolds on May 24, 2012 at 11:10 AM EDT

    John Reynolds is being recognized as a Champion of Change for his dedication to service and his continued support for efforts to boost employment for fellow veterans.

    It is a telling mark of a society how it treats those who serve it.  Whatever you may think of the advisability of America’s military conflicts, we owe something to those individuals who have been willing to make sacrifices for the rest of us.  Fortunately, I think we’ve learned much in the last 40 years about the distinction between the warrior and the war, and that’s a good thing. 

    As a business entrepreneur and veteran, I was troubled by unemployment rates approaching 30% among younger and disabled veterans.  My concern gave way to puzzlement.  These veterans are, after all, among our best.  They are disciplined, mission-focused team players with a demonstrated predisposition to serve.  What company wouldn’t want to hire people like these?  It simply made no sense to me that these good people had so much trouble finding employment.

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