Early Childhood, Preschool, K-12
Professional Development for Programs, and Support for Dads
About Patrick Mitchell
Engaging Speaker
The Down To Earth Dad® Founder Patrick Mitchell is a recognized thought leader and trusted authority on father involvement across America, and his storytelling events boosting early literacy and school readiness are widely acclaimed.
His entertaining and passionate keynotes and professional development trainings for early childhood educators, practitioners, and parents are highly regarded by audiences large and small.
National, state, and local organizations — including the U.S. Head Start Bureau, Child Welfare League of America, U.S. Child Care Bureau, universities/colleges and early childhood agencies, associations, and individual programs — book Patrick for keynotes, trainings, and family-engagement events.
His expertise, combined with his engaging speaking style, makes him a top choice for conferences and special events nationwide and internationally.
Popular Events
TEAMS: Patrick’s professional development events are tailored to match program/school needs. Popular topics include Father Engagement for Educators, Story Sharing for ECE, and Staff Stress Reduction in support of work-life balance for educator teams. Four training delivery methods are available for professional development events.
FAMILIES: Evening With Dads™ brings fathers together in program and school settings, and Family Storytelling Night® equips parents with tools to boost early literacy, foster school readiness, and celebrate individual/family/community history, heritage, and culture along the way.
Collaborations
The Down To Earth Dad partners with agencies, organizations, and individual programs — at local, state, and federal levels — focusing on father engagement, early literacy, and school readiness.
Patrick provides turn-key resources, consultations, coaching, and innovative tools that empower educators, practitioners, and parents to strengthen connections and foster meaningful parent-and-family engagement.
Dad Groups & Coaching
For 25 years, Patrick has connected with thousands of parents and educators through daytime and evening events at early childhood
programs, colleges, keynotes, seminars, and trainings.
He features fathers in the National Dads Matter!™ Project that he founded to celebrate involved fatherhood with program partners nationwide, and he talks with dads individually and in groups.
These experiences — and his own journey as a dad — shape his approach to The Down To Earth Dad® Community of Dads, and Coaching for Dads outreaches (dads sign themselves up, or your program or school sponsors them).
Patrick has appeared on national television as a fatherhood expert and on radio programs across America, and he writes a bimonthly column for Children’s Voice magazine published by the Child Welfare League of America in Washington, DC.
He lives with his family in Idaho.
See some of Patrick’s recent and upcoming events.
Keynote Address
Ask Patrick Mitchell to keynote your next early childhood or parent engagement conference, or to train (and entertain!) during breakout sessions. Upbeat. Positive. FUN!
Family Storytelling Night
Host a high-impact parent engagement and early literacy (or family literacy ESL-ELL) event that your parents will call “the most fun we ever had at a family night!”
Evening With Dads
Get your dads, grandpas, and other special guys sharing parenting challenges and triumphs (and good food!) in your lunchroom or classroom. Patrick Mitchell facilitates.
Professional Development
Patrick’s entertaining staff trainings for programs and schools boost father engagement, reduce staff stress, team-build, and facilitate goal setting. Lots of laughter!
Book a Keynote Address
Patrick Mitchell’s keynotes at national, state, and specialty conferences across America entertain and inform with cool audio-visuals, engaging insights, and space for lively interactions—dancing optional!
A father involvement segment Patrick calls How To Get Men to Do Absolutely ANYTHING—at School and Home! (a.k.a. “How to Talk to Men so they’ll Listen”) gets everybody engaged in a playful, entertaining way.
Patrick’s keynotes are customized to match conference themes, but left to his own devices his topic choices tend toward father engagement, staff/parent stress reduction, early-literacy enhancement via family storytelling, story sharing for ECE, and developing individual and group visions and goals.
Head Start Staff Training
Family Storytelling Night
Family Storytelling Night® is a highly interactive family literacy and family engagement EVENT hosted in your lunchroom, gym, or classroom.
Parents learn a storytelling method (without books) to enhance literacy nightly at home all year long, and they’ll celebrate individual, family, and community history, heritage, culture along the way.
This high impact parent-and-family engagement event:
- Enhances early literacy—at school and home.
- Is perfect for ELL/ESL family literacy nights, too.
- Motivates your parents to attend your future events!
- Bolsters school readiness.
- Boosts parent-and-child-together (PACT) time.
- Provides colorful make-and-take projects for each family.
- Celebrates parent-and-family engagement and literacy enhancement for Head Start, EHS, and elementary school families.
- Presents great photo-ops!
- Has your parents calling it the BEST family event ever!
Patrick’s entertaining staff trainings for individual programs and schools across America help teams optimize father engagement for the sake of children’s enhanced cognitive, social, and emotional development.
Cool audio-visuals, lively conversation, role-playing activities, learning *exactly* how to talk to men so they’ll listen, father-engagement goal setting, team bonding, and staff stress reduction are components of these customized trainings.
LAUGHTER is also a big part of these events!
Your team will…
- Learn tried, tested, and perfected ways to get, and keep, men optimally engaged all year.
- Learn and practice stress-reduction strategies.
- Build stronger bonds with other team members.
- Share visions and set goals for enhanced dad engagement.
- Say this was the most FUN they ever had at a training!
Patrick Mitchell in Saipan as the honored guest of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Public School System, delivering a keynote address and professional development sessions to educators. While there, he facilitated Family Storytelling Nights on the islands of Rota and Saipan featuring stories shared by speakers of 14 native languages!
Evening With Dads
Evening With Dads™ is an interactive event for your dads, grandpas, and other special guys. It happens in your gym, classroom, or other meeting space.
You’ll serve food (of course)!
Your men will share parenting challenges and triumphs and share/learn cool parent-engagement strategies.
The Down To Earth Dad® Founder Patrick Mitchell personally facilitates with solid information, good humor, cool audio-visuals, stress reduction,and storytelling activities.
Dads learn new ways to bolster their children’s early literacy and cognitive, social, and emotional development.
You’ll build your core group of dads by hosting this event. These guys will help plan future events!
This event will…
- Get your dads more visibly engaged.
- Kick-start (or re-kick-start) your Dads’ Group.
- Inspire your men to volunteer more.
- Motivate your men to attend your future events.
Ask Patrick if he’s available for your chosen date, and consider booking a second event—a Down To Earth Dad® staff training—for the next morning.
The National Dads Matter! Project™
The National Dads Matter! Project (NDMP) spotlights your best men and makes them famous mentors, boosting father engagement across your service area, and raising the bar for dad involvement.
You’ll get articles about your dads (ready to print, copy, and hand out to everyone!) and LARGE, framed wall posters featuring your men—including pictures of your dads.
This tried, tested, and proven-effective done-for-you parent engagement and dad-recruitment resource is EASY to implement, needing less than 30 minutes per week to manage on your end.
- GIANT posters, articles, and pictures of your men monthly.
- Raises the bar for father engagement program-wide.
- Spotlights father engagement at your program for all to see.
- Each man gets his “fifteen minutes of fame” for being a DAD!
- EASY to implement; this is a totally turn-key operation requiring minimal time commitment on your end.
Recent Blog Posts
Father And Family Activities: These Kids of Ours, They Love to Play!
Father And Family Activities™ I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: These kids of ours, they love to play! And that includes, of course, the traditional Dad
A Fine Whine: How to Stop Your Kids from Talking B-a-a-a-a-ck…
By Patrick Mitchell “But Da-a-a-a-a-d…why do I ha-a-ve to go…?” I don’t want to go…why can’t I just stay here alone and play with my friends. D-a-a-a-a-a-a-d…why-y-y-y?” Most
Fathers Help Kids Read
by Patrick Mitchell Father involvement is vital to children’s academic, social, and emotional development—especially in the early years. Parents who acknowledge, and act on, this research-driven reality can give
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Book a Father Engagement Keynote Address, Staff Training, or PFCE Early Literacy Family Night, and Order Dad Involvement Tools for Your Early Childhood Program to Increase Parent Engagement all Year Long!