A program aimed at improving the lives of local fathers and their families got a big boost Friday by way of a $50,000 grant from the Alabama Department of Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention.

Dane Shaw, director of the Dallas County Fatherhood Initiative, said the money would be a huge help to the initiative, which is organized under the umbrella of the Dallas County Children’s Policy Council.

“It’s real big compared to last year, when we had some seed money to get started,” Shaw said. “This will let us reach more men, get more men back to work, and take care of more families.”

Shaw said that by being able to continue their work of bettering local men through job training and abuse prevention education, the Fatherhood Initiative would continue to better the community.

“We know that when children are taken care of, and families are taken care of, abuse drops, education levels go up,” Shaw said.

District Judge Bob Armstrong , who is in charge of the Dallas County Children’s Policy Council, said that while the Fatherhood Initiative works to improve the lives of area fathers, the ultimate goal is to improve the lives of those father’s children.

“It’s a child support program that helps dads,” Armstrong said. “A lot of them aren’t deadbeats; they just aren’t. But because of disadvantages or bad choices, they are not as able to get a job as someone who is more educated and maybe has a high school diploma. It helps people get GED, job training and jobs, and it teaches them how to be a father.”

Greg Smith, deputy director of the Alabama Department of Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention, was in Selma Friday to present to leaders of the local Children Policy Council and Fatherhood Initiative and said he trusted this grant money was being invested in a way that would best serve the people of Selma and Dallas County.

“We’ve been trying to get a program like this over here for a lot of years, and we finally found a champion in Judge Armstrong to pull it all together, so we’ve got a good home for the money and we know the money will be spent the way it was intended,” Smith said. “We are just excited to have this program over here, because we have really wanted it here for so long.”

Armstrong said the money would be used to do whatever it takes to improve the lives of local fathers and children.

“We do anything and everything we can to make life better for families and kids,” Armstrong said.