DOWNEY - The fourth iteration of Father Con returns to Downey next week, looking to inspire and educate fathers, future fathers and father figures.

The in-person conference will be held April 9 at Warren High School from 9:30 am to 2:30 pm.

Founder Patrick Erlandson says that Father Con transpired out of his work in human trafficking prevention.

“I worked with the Long Beach Human Trafficking Task Force on the prevention side of things. Everything just kind of kept coming to this recognition that fathers were in this pivotal position of influencing their sons and their daughters, but also their own behavior; it was intersecting with human trafficking,” said Erlandson. “That’s what led me to feel that we’re overlooking a source of the problem, but also a source of the solution.

“If we can really engage fathers, we can solve not just human-trafficking, but a whole host of other problems.”

Erlandson said that a father brings “a sense of self-worth” and a feeling that “you are worthy of being loved.”

“It’s a little bit different [than a mother],” said Erlandson. “Anything that I say is not to disparage or diminish the significance of motherhood by any means whatsoever, but for a  long time there has been this sort of eroding of the significance of fathers in the lives of their children.

“What we’re seeing is the prisons are full of kids who grew up without dads, gangs are full of kids who grow up without dads, teenage girls get pregnant at much higher rates if they don’t have a healthy, male father figure in their life. We have almost 500,000 kids in the foster care system in America. The list goes on and on. The data is pretty clear that not having a father in your life has serious detrimental impact.”

Father Con will feature several speakers and workshops, covering a range of topics including human trafficking, fathers’ rights, finances, sexual hurt, returning from incarceration, family healing and more.

Former mayor Rick Rodriguez – who serves on the board for the event – said the conference is not only about “preparing and counseling fathers to be better fathers,” but also “keeping children safe.”

“Father Con does a great service to the youth of our community, and to the fathers – young fathers, old fathers, grandfathers, stepfathers, godfathers – the overall parenting. It really assists with the parenting skills for our community.”

For more information, visit www.father-con.org, or email info@fathercon.org.