Purdue News
Purdue News
January 17, 1997 Length: ~1 Min. 40 Sec.
Connie Ostler, Producer/Writer/Director (765) 494-2075; Fax 494-0401
Current Length: 1:40
Thrust: a Purdue outreach program is helping young dads learn about fatherhood.
1. ANCHOR ON CAMERA Fatherless homes remain a problem in the United States. But a Purdue University program is helping to bring Indiana's young dads back into their children's lives. Greg Zawisza (za-WISH-a) has the story.
2. NAT SOUND UP FULL SOUND OF JIM SIMS PLAYING WITH DAUGHTER
3. NAT SOUND Becoming a father doesn't necessarily mean knowing how to parent, as 23-year-old Jim Sims of Lake Station, Indiana, discovered when he sought visitation rights for his daughter. Stepping in to fill the knowledge gap, Purdue University has created a program called "It's My Child Too!" The program is offered around the state for young fathers who want to be more involved in raising their children.
4. SOT
CG: David Caldwell, Purdue Cooperative Extension Educator, Fayette County. I think this is a national problem. . . . These guys have said yes, I've fathered a child and I have a responsibility toward that child, now let me take that responsibility.
5. NAT SOUND The program reaches out to fathers between the ages of fourteen and twenty-eight who are required to take the course as part of paternity hearings.
6. SOT
CG: James Jordan, Purdue Cooperative Extension Educator, Porter County. Most of the guys that come into this program are coming in with an attitude, they're madder than hell, they don't want to be there, they don't want to be mandated to be there. . . but by the end of the second evening they're coming because they actually want to, because they're actually enjoying the bond.
7. NAT SOUND SOUND OF CHILD AND RATTLE
8. SOT
CG: Jim Sims, It's My Child Too graduate Every time I have her it's something new that I'm like -- Dang! Where did I learn this? And then, oh the class. I could take the same class over again and I'm sure I'd pick something up next time that I didn't pick up last time.
9. NAT SOUND
CG: Courtesy Purdue University The program is designed and taught by men, and the issues are focused entirely on the young man's relationship to his child. Even guest speakers, such as nutritionists and storytellers, are male.
10. NAT SOUND STORY TIME NAT SOUND
11. SOT
CG: Douglas Powell, Head, Purdue Child Development and Family Studies. They want to know how to do the best job as possible, and frankly, many of them have had difficult experiences themselves as children in relation to their own fathers.
12. NAT SOUND SOUND OF PATTY-CAKE WITH CHILD
13. SOT (Sims) Nobody's a perfect parent. . . It doesn't matter what she is or what she does, she'll always be my little girl.
14 NAT SOUND Greg Zawisza reporting.
co/vnr-fathering/9701f17
