High-pitched giggles and booming laughter filled the room full of dads brushing and braiding their daughters’ hair. Family & Children’s Services is always looking for new and innovative ways to provide family support, mental health and family engagement opportunities, and the Daddy Daughter Hair Factory fit the bill.
The Daddy Daughter Hair Factory was a combined effort between Family & Children’s Services, the local head start program CAP Tulsa, Clary Sage College and held at Tulsa Public School’s Eugene Field and Frost Elementary Schools. For two uninterrupted hours, dads and their daughters bonded while dads learned how to take care of their daughters’ hair. Skills taught by a Clary Sage instructor included brushing without pulling, how to do a basic braid and ponytail and other styling tips.
The creator of the Daddy Daughter Hair Factory is Phil Morgese, a Florida-based father. When he received full-time custody of his daughter, Emma, then age 1, “I had no clue about how to fix her hair, so I decided to win it,” Morgese said. “Because she already had a full head of hair and it was getting in her eyes, I taught myself how to put in little hair clips and carried them everywhere in my pockets.” In October 2015, he started the bi-week classes that has now become a national program.
“I’m more than happy to share what I’ve learned, mainly because of the fun that the dads and the girls get to have together,” Morgese told PEOPLE magazine.
Family & Children Services has eleven sites throughout the Tulsa County area and serve approximately 2,300 children and their families. For more information about our Daddy Daughter Hair Factory, contact Parent Involvement Coordinator Lacey Austin, at lchothran@fcsok.org.