ABSTRACT
The DADS (Dads Actively Developing Stable families) Family Project, first created in 1996 (Barlow & Cleveland, 1996), is an innovative program designed to fit a variety of settings such as schools, churches, prisons, and businesses. The project is based on the belief that fathers can be empowered in their role as a valuable parent, enabled through skill building techniques, and inspired in a supportive gathering of fathers. The impetus for the project was two-fold. One was to diversify our clinical practices. We sought diversification in order to develop new revenue streams in response to the expansion of managed care within the mental health market in Florida. The second was to find innovative ways to serve client families. While working together in a family medical practice, Art Cleveland and Larry Barlow secured initial funding for the project in partnership with a nonprofit agency via a family support/family preservation grant from the Florida Department of Children and Families in 1997.
