Present: A Fatherhood Playbook for Healing Relationships and Connecting with Your Kids

A compassionate guide for fathers who want to reconnect with their children, offering powerful tools for growing as an individual and healing as a family--from the co-founder of FathersUplift

Young men of color want to be good dads, but it takes more than a strong will to make that desire a reality. Charles C. Daniels Jr., Ph.D., a therapist and co-founder and CEO of FathersUplift, an organization that helps fathers reconnect with their kids, learned firsthand while serving primarily Black and Brown men that it’s possible for fathers to overcome the significant challenges to establishing a relationships with their kids after weeks, months, or even years of separation.

Present is an honest look at the complexities that accompany separation and the sometimes grueling effort it takes to overcome those barriers. Drawing on therapeutic practice and the experiences of thousands, Daniels describes what it takes for fathers to parent themselves, for families to practice forgiveness, and for fathers and communities to create support structures so that dads can navigate life transitions, relate better to the whole family, and heal from their own woundedness.

Daniels shows that it’s possible for young men who have experienced a separation from their children to reestablish those bonds. For young men and those who support them, and for those who are interested in the struggles these men and their children face, Present is a book of challenge and of hope, filled with stories from Daniels’s own life and the lives of the fathers he serves.

Charles C. Daniels Jr., Ph.D., is the co-founder and CEO of FathersUplift, a nonprofit organization that provides mental health counseling, coaching, and advocacy to assist fathers with overcoming barriers that prevent them from remaining engaged in their children’s lives. Daniels grew up outside Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated from Bethune-Cookman University, and he holds a Ph.D. in clinical social work from the Simmons University School of Social Work and a master’s in divinity from The Boston University School of Theology.