ACCORDING TO the National Fatherhood Initiative, children raised with an absent father have the odds stacked against them: they are more likely to face addiction, teen pregnancy, and obesity, and they are more likely to end up incarcerated. In the United States, over 17.6 million children fall into that category, including 42% of Lynchburg’s own children — but local fathers are fighting to change those numbers. Led by Dave Frett and the Dare2Dad program, local fathers are growing in communication, co-parenting, emotional maturity, and overall connection to their families.
The idea for Dare2Dad came to Frett during a leadership meeting of FIVE18 Family Services, where Frett served as connect team director. One of the missions of FIVE18 Family Services is Vision 30 — the idea that by 2030, all kids in Lynchburg and its surrounding counties would be safe in their homes. The organization had already been focusing on kids and on single mothers, but Frett realized that to make that vision happen, they would need to target fathers as well.
“Seeing the way that children are hurting and families are breaking down, I knew that we as an organization and as the community, if we were going to achieve this goal, we needed to put an emphasis and a focus on dads,” Frett said.
He started with research, finding a good program and making sure there was no other group doing that work already. The programs he found were put together by the National Fatherhood Initiative: 24:7 Dad and InsideOut Dad. The first focuses on fathers in the community, the second fathers in jail. Frett wanted to focus on both demographics.
Dare2Dad was launched in April of 2023 in the Amherst Adult Detention Center. Two years later Frett is still there on a weekly basis, working with the fathers there. Dare2Dad has also spread into the Lynchburg Adult Detention Center and the Halifax County Adult Detention Center, as well as out into the community to fathers on probation, fathers involved in the foster care system, and fathers in their regular lives.
“Kids need both their parents. They need both their parents to be able to pour into them,” Frett said. “If we’re going to see strong families — if we’re going to see strong children become strong adults — then the dads need to be actively involved in their lives.”
Frett has 25 years of experience being a dad, with four young men over the age of 18. Those experiences, he said, help him connect with all kinds of dads no matter what life situation they are in. His goal is to create more strong leaders in the community, and ultimately make families stronger to raise healthy and well-adjusted young adults.
“The way the family goes is the way that the community goes; the way the community goes is the way the country goes,” Frett said.
Any father can help with that mission, whether they want to take a Dare2Dad course or teach one. You don’t have to have a degree in human services or be a perfect father. In fact, Frett said, he has neither qualification.
“God took an ordinary man — an ordinary dad — and he said, ‘Hey, go talk to ordinary dads about what it means to be an extraordinary father,’” Frett said. “All of us have that ability in us to be those extraordinary dads.” GN
Learn more at connect.five18.org.
