Michael Cupeles

Michael Cupeles, CCAP, is a fatherhood and family systems leader, national consultant, facilitator, and advocate whose work centers on strengthening the systems that support fathers, children, and families. His professional and lived experience spans early childhood education, father engagement, family voice, child and family well-being, primary prevention, domestic violence prevention, and community-based support.

Michael serves as the Male Initiative Coordinator for Gateway Community Action Partnership’s Early Head Start and Head Start programs, where he leads father and male caregiver engagement across multiple communities in southern New Jersey. His work emphasizes meaningful father inclusion, family strengthening, two-generation approaches, community partnerships, and improvement in how programs and systems engage and respond to men and families.

At the state level, Michael serves as co-chair of the New Jersey Department of Children and Families, Office of Family Voice, Fatherhood Engagement Committee. He is also a community liaison with the New Jersey Coalition to End Domestic Violence’s Men of Courage Network, contributing to efforts that engage men in healthy masculinity, prevention, family well-being, and community change.

Nationally, Michael brings both professional expertise and lived experience to initiatives focused on strengthening family-serving systems. He serves on the National Expert Board of the Children’s Trust Fund Alliance’s Quality Improvement Center on Helplines and contributes as a national consultant with lived expertise through the Children’s Trust Fund Alliance. He also serves on the Parent Advisory Council of the FRIENDS National Center for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention, where he has contributed to national parent leadership and prevention efforts for several years.

Michael is nationally certified in fatherhood practice through the Fathers & Families Coalition of America and the National Fatherhood Initiative and holds the Certified Community Action Professional (CCAP) credential. He is also an ordained minister and chaplain. Across these roles, he has served as a presenter, facilitator, trainer, advisor, and lived-experience consultant with national, state, and community organizations working across early childhood, family support, child welfare, prevention, and fatherhood.

A central theme of Michael’s work is the belief that sustainable change occurs when systems move beyond simply serving families and begin designing solutions with them. He advocates for fathers and families to be recognized not merely as recipients of services, but as partners whose lived experience, strengths, and voices are essential to improving programs, policies, and systems.

His work ultimately seeks to bridge lived experience, professional practice, and systems leadership—helping communities build approaches that are more inclusive, responsive, preventive, and genuinely centered on the people they are intended to serve.