Our Mission: Finding a cause bigger than self to support opportunities that increase family and child protective factors with a focus on the impact of fathers by providing professional development for those who work with parents and caregivers so that they have the skills, knowledge, and access to resources they need to support their child's development, wellness, restorative justice, social justice, early childhood education, criminal justice and more that help children and their families thrive.

The Four Pillars of FFCA 

The Fathers and Families Coalition of America is a leading organization that has consistently ranked among the top ten international conferences by Whova over the past three years. Our commitment to father inclusion as our first pillar aims to improve children's outcomes. 

The second pillar of our organization focuses on providing exceptional professional development opportunities to attendees by inviting renowned international presenters who share their cutting-edge methods that can be applied in their agencies or homes.

The third pillar is dedicated to ensuring a platform for domestic public policy. This is evident through the exceptional partnerships of the Fathers and Families Coalition of America has forged for featured general sessions. These sessions provide attendees with key takeaways from the keynote speakers and remarks, making them a must-attend for anyone interested in this field.

Finally, the fourth pillar involves international affiliates and stakeholders. We strive for excellence by bringing continued opportunities for networking post-conference year after year for over two decades. Our team comprises exemplary professionals who volunteer their time to focus on the conference's theme and agency commitment.

How We Started As A Vision to Envision

The commitment for over twenty-five years to offering the best professional development has a genesis within the Head Start profession in August 1993 to foster professional growth and professional development to family service staff and home-based educators as the education staff. A few years later, collaborating with other Arizona Head Start programs, we were ready to go beyond training staff and applied (awarded) for five (5) new programs funded by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in 1996. The first was an economic mobility program, followed by a basic education/life skills statewide grant, and then with fathers and families in Arizona whose needs were unmet, one of the nation's first TANF-funded young fathers programs. Initially, the organization started as a grassroots initiative to support low-income mothers and fathers on public assistance who wanted to move out of poverty through workforce programs. Dr. Sherry P. Ulmer, C.E.O. of Pinal Gila Community Child Services, Inc. in Coolidge, Arizona, played a pivotal role in allowing and cultivating the process of envisioning and seeing beyond the needs of rural Pinal and Gila counties. Involvement with the domestic policy change of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families in the United States gave birth to the Fathers & Families Coalition. PGCCS established the foundation of Arizona Fathers & Families Coalition, Inc., eventually forming the Fathers & Families Coalition of America. 

We quickly realized that we could create more opportunities for individuals and communities by providing expert knowledge on helping others. This need for self-improvement has become an international request from the Fathers & Families Coalition of America (FFCA) to help others enhance their personal and professional abilities. Since 2000, we have held our first conference at Mesa Community College in Mesa, Arizona. The Fathers and Families Coalition of America has trained well over one hundred thousand individuals (parents, practitioners, executives) globally since we launched our efforts in the 1990's. FFCA has established offices in Los Angeles, California and San Juan, Puerto Rico, by holding to influence of envision. FFCA has hundreds of formal partnerships that lead to premiere professional development and organizational capacity building to improve family outcomes. 

 "Finding A Cause Bigger Than Self" is not just a slogan; it is the core of FFCA. The 25th International Families and Fathers Conference revolves around "CALLED: Finding A Cause Bigger Than Self". The conference aims to showcase how an individual's vision can make a global impact, helping professionals from various fields such as social work, child welfare, early childhood, Head Start, child support, criminal justice, and health. Everyone has a special opportunity and is chosen to make a difference in their community, and FFCA has been called to champion these champions globally. 

 Called for Higher Standards

 Our focus is on providing professional development, training, technical assistance, and social advancement in policy and justice issues with peers throughout the United States and internationally, all for one purpose: to be a part of helping children and parents get the best out of us all as practitioners and to reflect the best in each of the millions of children served through our affiliates, members, and stakeholders. The impact of FFCA has resulted in hosting or co-sponsoring over 500 training institutes, now twenty-five international conferences, 50 regional institutes, and four Caribbean programs.

 In 2020, we revised our leadership development institute, OAR Leadership Institute. A dynamic 16-hour leadership program for parents of young children as we partnered with UCLA. The program demand has allowed others to join us from the United Kingdom, South America, Pakistan, South Asia, Australia, Puerto Rico, and the United States for the thoughtful journey. In 2024, there is still a growing need to support the professional development and quality improvement training of those working with families. Since 2020, just shy of 3500 professionals have come through FFCA seeking social justice strategies to improve local, state, and international strengthening families and father initiatives. Since 1996, on some level, the opportunity to develop a new TANF-funded fatherhood initiative FFCA has made it a priority to work with exceptional leaders throughout the United States and internationally to address the essential opportunities in direct practice, policy, professional development, and community involvement with the primary focus on improving outcomes for children. 

 1773 Benjamin Franklin said, "Well done is better than well said." Without your involvement, we cannot do any of what we want to do! 

I remain at your service... Me quedo a su servicio,

Dr. James C. Rodríguez, MSW
President & Chief Executive Officer
Fathers and Families Coalition of America
335 E. Albertoni Street,
Suite 200-430,
Carson, California 90746
424-789-4644 (c)
424-225-1323 (o)

Dr. Aida Díaz Rivera– Vice President
Medina Professional Center
Calle Monseñor Torres,
San Juan, Puerto Rico, 00925

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