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EH - Developing Fatherhood Sensitive Services

Father2Father: Developing Fatherhood Sensitive Services

Setting The Context: 

A lot has changed in recent years regarding professional attitudes toward fathers and the importance of fathering in the development of healthy children in recent years. The following are just some of the key findings and points that are gaining traction:

The legacy of lockdown still casts a shadow over young families, 80% of expectant fathers were excluded from antenatal appointments, scans and classes, and from early parts of labour.

• Some fathers live with their children part-time-having minority, equal or even majority overnight care. Such dads are often mis-labelled ‘non-resident’, and implicitly assumed to be uninvolved or unimportant. Also, even with truly ‘non-resident’ fathers, with no overnight care, many still play a significant role in their children’s lives.
• The effects of marginalisation of fathers presents three problems: it suggests that fathers are optional in children’s lives, and don’t contribute to children’s wellbeing. It is detrimental to mothers as it over-burdens them with sole rather shared responsibility. It dissuades take-up of and participation in services by fathers and pushes men to accept a diminished role in the life of their families.

“Evidence shows that involved fatherhood has unique and significant impacts on children, mothers, and fathers themselves; improves children’s wellbeing and outcomes; and helps progress towards gender equality at home and in the workplace”.

Fatherhood Institute

“This is the first time I’ve felt heard and seen by a professional who says they are there to get the best outcome from my children. In the past I have always felt second best to my little children’s mother, and I thought that was the way it was supposed to be, I thought my time would come when they got closer to being teenagers, it seems like such a so stupid idea now”.

Father of 2 & 4 year-old girls, after attending a Father 2 Father workshop

Our training sessions are designed to further the positive change in attitudes and increase our collective understanding of what more needs to be done to create inclusive services through co-productive conversation.

 

Session One

In the first session we review the emerging evidence, review attitudes & beliefs, and reflect on what is changing, what is set to change. We can make this session very Haringey centric in order to tease out what more Haringey services need to do in order to create fatherhood friendly spaces that ultimately drive down violent offending both in the home and in the community and increase educational attainment.

We will pay particular attention to those fathers who have been estranged from their children and or have been in the criminal justice system and as such have lost contact with their family.  

We will look at the systemic and public health correlation between the challenges in our society and the extent to which the absence of a father in a child’s formative years can adversely impact on a child’s progress and how they conduct themselves in shared spaces (schools, and other social settings). We will set it within the context of a community centred approach.

Setting The Scene: This first session would ideally be delivered in-person because the intention is for it to be highly interactive , we appreciate that people are extremely busy but it might be better at this stage to attract people who are highly motivated to attend and to become champions, rather than have double the number who simply attend on line, but do not meaningfully engage with the process…

Take-aways: Those who attend will get the space to think things through with their colleagues and reflect on their practice and what is going on in the borough. The group will come up with its own ideas about what can be done to make services in Haringey more father friendly. They will build on the progress that has been achieved in Haringey and elsewhere in the country.

 

Session Two (virtual) Where Do We Need Dads:

In this session we begin to think about strategies for engaging dads, especially in education and as carers of children with disabilities-hidden or otherwise. We reflect on the inflection points for fathers in the raising of their children and the extent to which they can be the counter balance to the dizzying amount of negative influences that children have to contend with…..We also talk about non-reductive approaches to supporting fathers, and where possible, talk about what more can be done to create more local fathers champions.

Setting: This is an online session: It is much more focused on examples of emerging best practice, and how participants can become champions in Haringey, and support progress in 2024.

 

Two half-day session: one in-person and the other is virtual.

Dates: 24^th April and 1^st May.

Where?

Session 1:The Triangle Family Hub 
Session 2: Online

Dates