Providing education and training for healthy relationships, fatherhood, and employment to youth and adults to encourage sustainable growth in their community.

Our founder, Frank, is a survivor of the gang lifestyle. Growing up, he dropped out of school in the 10th grade and worked a humbling job as a dishwasher. He transformed his life through the Job Corps program, where he earned his high school diploma, entered a college program, received his B.S. in Psychology, and graduated in 2009 with a Master of Public Administration from the University of Utah.

In 2005, while working at Salt Lake CAP Head Start as the Fatherhood Coordinator, Frank began to understand the critical importance of a paternal presence in the early stages of child development. This realization led him to conduct research on the absence of father figures among youth in the Juvenile Justice System and adults in the criminal justice system. His research revealed that the majority of individuals in these systems were raised without an involved father or father figure. This insight sparked the idea to start a fatherhood organization—one that would provide education to fathers and offer Pathways to Manhood for boys.

In 2009, the Fathers & Families Coalition of Utah was formed with the mission of providing education to fathers and male youth. Through the use of the Nurturing Fathers and Pathways to Manhood curricula, Frank reached over 500 fathers at the Salt Lake CAP Head Start location. He eventually left the organization and continued his work throughout the community, oftentimes meeting one-on-one with individuals at coffee shops to teach.

While teaching Nurturing Fathers, Frank noticed how many teen fathers were involved in the system. In response, he partnered with Horizonte Instruction & Training Center in 2012 to launch what was then called the Youth Parenting Program (YPP), now know as the Building Uplifting Relationships (BUR) Program. This program incorporated the WiseGuys curriculum and expanded the organization’s impact, providing evidence-based education to youth of all genders and reaching over 300 participants each year. 

As the BUR Program grew, Frank asked participating youth what they wanted to learn and what they needed most. The overwhelming response was: “jobs.” In 2017, the Jobs Work Program (JWP) was launched to meet that need. Using the Real Employability Skills and WiseGuys curricula—and starting with a student-run Good Start Snow Cone Booth—the program has since expanded to provide classes across Salt Lake City School District, Granite School District, and other local community agencies.