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SALT LAKE CITY — Recently, Matt Kinikini taught his 5-year-old son Gabriel to ride a bike.
As any proud father might, Kinikini reveled in the moment when Gabriel suddenly found his balance and stopped wobbling.
"It makes me happy to see him do that. If I hadn't changed, it would have been someone else that taught him to do that," Kinikini said.
Kinikini, a recovering crystal meth addict, travels a journey similar to his child's as he seeks a healthy balance in his life as a single father, breadwinner and role model for his two young sons.
Kinikini, 23, is in Odyssey House's Fathers and Children's program, a yearlong residential substance abuse treatment program. The unique program serves fathers who are addicts, who have mental health disorders, criminal records, parenting issues, relationship problems, poor employment histories and low educational attainment. Their children, who are provided child care, educational services and therapy, live with their fathers while they are in treatment.
It makes me happy to see him do that. If I hadn't changed, it would have been someone else that taught him to do that.
–Matt Kinikini
The goal of the program is to help fathers overcome substance abuse and develop life and parenting skills that help them raise healthy children. The children are taught a wide array of life skills so they, too, do not fall prey to addiction and other pitfalls.
Although participants come from lives of chaos, the Parents and Children's Program operates on a tight schedule with strict rules.
The day starts at 6:30 a.m., when dads and children dress and prepare for the day. Next comes breakfast and the children go to a nearby Children's Services facility, where they will spend their day in supervised child care, play, instruction and therapy.
The dads meet for group therapy for three hours. Next comes lunch, which can be followed by court visits, medical or dental appointments or individual therapy. The children return for dinner, followed by baths and a predictable bedtime routine. They're due in bed at 8:30 p.m. The men then gather to reflect on their respective days, which includes their peers' critique of their progress or regression.
Then, the clients join their children for the night, hopefully getting seven or eight hours of sleep before they have to do it all again the next day.
Bradley Heib, a graduate of the program, who now works as a case worker at Odyssey House, said it can be difficult to submit to such a strict routine.
"At first, it would be like being in the military. After you start doing it for a while, you start to see how it makes sense," he said.
Karen Williams, director of Odyssey House's Parents and Children's Program, said she was somewhat skeptical how fathers would handle the program's strict routine and rules when it started in 2005.
"The guys have been out running and gunning," she said. "I didn't know if they'd be emotionally invested enough. Boy, was I surprised."
It's like a community. It's a team. We can't do it alone.
–Bradley Heib
The fathers tend to be a bit more successful following treatment than mothers in Odyssey House's residential treatment program, which is a year long, followed by an intensive outpatient program, she said.
"They're a lot more wounded in ways the dads are not," Williams said of mothers in treatment. "It takes them a lot, too, to get beyond the guilt."
According to a National Institute on Drug Abuse brief, women in treatment programs tend to bring more complex issues to the experience. They are less likely to have graduated from high school or be employed. They "are more likely than men to have other health problems, to have sought previous drug treatment, to have attempted suicide and to have suffered sexual abuse or other physical abuse."
Kinikini said he believes that fathers tend to be more successful in the residential treatment program because there are far fewer treatment beds so fathers don't want to squander the opportunity. Odyssey House has six slots for fathers and 16 for mothers.
But Kinikini believes it is also a function of men coming together in a therapeutic community.
"Our situations are really similar, where the other parent didn't show up. We’re the dads, so it's kind of different," he said.
Heib said it may have something to do with the competitive nature of men. "If someone is messing up, you know they're weaker. The bigger picture is, we're all talking to the weaker one and trying to bring them up to our level.
"It's like a community. It's a team. We can't do it alone."
Indeed, the program stresses responsibility, integrity and accountability. Participants are responsible for their behavior but also check the conduct of their peers. All are expected to work, to co-parent, and keep their personal and common space clean.
"Everything has to be clean. It's symbolic. Your physical environment is clean while you're cleaning up yourself," Williams explained.
While peers play a role in keeping another on task and accountable to the program, sons and daughters also confront their parents' behavior in family therapy.
"When my kids came here, my daughter was trying to be the parent to my son because their mother was an addict too," Heib said.
There's a lot of guilt and shame — a lot of guilt and shame — a lot of anger at myself for what I put them through.
–Kinikini
Kinikini said he did not comprehend how his actions as an addict and gang member had affected his sons. Once, during a therapy session, his 3- year-old son Elijah acted out Kinikini putting him to bed. The old routine largely involved Kinikini shouting demands, "Eli, get in bed. Get in bed."
Now, the boy says his father asks him if he wants to read a book before they turn in for the night.
"When you're using (drugs) you say, 'It's not a big deal.' You tell yourself, 'They won't even remember that,'" Kinikini said.
That obviously wasn't the case, he said.
"There's a lot of guilt and shame — a lot of guilt and shame — a lot of anger at myself for what I put them through," Kinikini said.
While Kinikini knows he needs to learn from his past and make amends when possible, he also knows he cannot change what happened. Nor can he get back the lost moments as a father when he was far more focused on getting high than on the needs of his children.
"I can't change the past, but I can make their future a lot better," Kinikini said.
Kinikini is completing his high school studies and wants to go to college to become "some kind of counselor for kids so they don't go down the same path I chose."
He works at Children's Services overseeing other clients who clean the facility. He is also responsible for dropping off and picking up children from the Children's Services facility.
He realizes he's been granted a do-over when it comes to his sons. He's made so much progress that the Division of Child and Family Services has closed his case, he said.
Before, he didn't take his role as a father and a provider as seriously has he should. He knows now that the boys' mother, who is also an addict, is not able to parent the boys in a healthy manner.
"Now it's all me, pretty much," he said, adding that his peers in treatment and program staff are quick to lend a hand when he feels overwhelmed or has questions about how to handle an issue.
One thing is certain, Kinikini is serious about being an effective father. "I know now I want to be with my kids."
He used to consider Father's Day as "a day for me."
"Now," Kinikini said, "it’s a day with my kids."
Email:mcortez@ksl.com
