ENGAGING FATHERS WORKSHOP Adrienne Burgess Bournemouth September 2010

SIMPLE CHANGES CAN BE EXTRAORDINARILY EFFECTIVE! In Australia, Fletcher (1997) reports fathers almost flooding into schools when specifically invited In Grantham, Lincolnshire (2009) two health visitors conducted a comparative study in which one continued to use the standard letter about the primary birth visit (“Dear parents”) while the other used a new father-inclusive version (“Dear new mum and dad”). With the standard letter 3 out of 15 dads attended’ with the father-inclusive letter 11/16 dads attended.

“Maturity of engagement” with fathers Raikes et al (2005) found fathers almost three times as likely to engage with parenting support/education when the service had reached “Stage 5” In “maturity” in engaging with men: Stage 1: Nearly exclusive focus on the mother-child dyad. Staff engage with a few fathers and only talk about the father if the mother raises the topic. Stage 2: Importance of fathers’ impact on children begins to be recognised. Father-involvement occurs primarily through male-only activities (e.g. “fathers’ groups”)

“Maturity of engagement” with fathers (cont.) Stage 3: The service: develops a conscious policy to include fathers enrols fathers alongside mothers systematically specifically informs fathers about the service; and encourages fathers’ involvement in a range of services. Stage 4: The service times home visits to meet fathers as well as mothers; and engages thoroughly with fathers during visits encourages fathers to articulate their own goals and develop family goal plans with mothers. attempts to meet with fathers more regularly consistently involves fathers in parent-leadership activities

“Maturity of engagement” with fathers (cont.) Stage 5: The service has an agency-wide commitment to attracting/involving fathers employs and trains a father-involvement co-ordinator consistently views fathers as co-parents views programmes as being as much for fathers as for mothers adjusts service delivery to meet the needs of working fathers/mothers helps both mothers and fathers to reflect on how each father contributes to his child’s health and development. discusses fathers regularly (and includes them wherever possible) in case-conferences programme leaders commit to ongoing critical and reflective self evaluation on engagement with fathers.

“Maturity of engagement” with fathers (cont.) Stage 6: The service provides the whole team with father-involvement training and includes this in induction holds all staff responsible for engaging with fathers (in job descriptions, supervisions, performance-evaluation etc.) has appropriate strategies to engage with non-resident fathers is aware of the different needs of other different types of fathers – e.g. young fathers, fathers in families grappling with disability etc. signposts fathers effectively to appropriate services, and works with those services to ensure fathers are welcome/assessed where such services do not exist, lobbies for these not only gathers details about fathers but assesses their needs holistically works with both parents on relationship issues OR signposts to couple support OR lobbies for couple- services N.B. No “Stage 6” agency has yet been identified/evaluated

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‘ENGAGING FATHERS AS PARTNERS’ DELIVERING FOR FAMILIES IN THE ‘BIG SOCIETY’ or NATIONAL CONFERENCE 11 November 2010 London