Introduce
Practitioners should always consider the impact, roles, and responsibilities of fathers and extended family members, even before the child’s birth, and aim to include them when working to engage families. Mothers are typically the parents most often seen by practitioners. Serious Case Reviews have consistently found that there was not enough attention paid to fathers and their role within the family. Some fathers might avoid engaging with professionals for fear of being judged as inadequate and may be hesitant to seek or accept assistance.
It is essential to recognise that most fathers want an active role in parenting their children, and the majority of children seek engagement with their fathers. Engaging fathers more thoroughly is crucial for addressing and challenging gender inequalities and biases within early years settings and agencies.
Greater Manchester is now working with Dads to shape early years services and recognise the positive role of the father in a child’s development. This includes creating more personalised support, more male-friendly groups, investment in health, wellbeing, and skills, and training for staff working across services for children and families.
As part of this, a short animation has been produced to help address some of the issues and encourage Dads to talk to and communicate with their child from birth. The film identifies a range of ideas to incorporate language and communication into everyday activities which we know is one of the best ways of supporting the communication development of young children.
Develop
Practitioners ought to make efforts, where suitable, to involve fathers in conversations and choices concerning their children, especially in situations where the children’s welfare is a concern or during ongoing care proceedings. It is important to challenge the tendency to focus on mothers only as this does not allow protective and risk factors to be fully explored.
Here are some top tips for engaging fathers:
Image source: Lorna Colter
In order to work effectively, practitioners need to be mindful of their own attitudes towards fathers. These attitudes may impact negatively on their perception of men within families and may lead to prejudice and stereotyping which is neither fair nor helpful.
Dad Matters is a Home-Start project that works nationally and across Greater Manchester to support fathers during the perinatal period to foster successful relationships with their families. The initiative focuses on helping dads understand attachment and bonding with their babies, addressing mental health concerns, supporting their partners, and accessing relevant services. You can hear more about what they offer in the following video:
Reflect
Stop and Reflect: The following reflective exercise is taken from the Anna Freud website – Supporting dads
Dads matter and our views about dads matter. We each hold an emotional and mental representation of fathers based on our early life experiences, and this is true whether he was present or absent, loving or abusive, alive or dead.
– Take a minute to think about your own father, what was he like? What did your experiences of him tell you about a man’s role in the family?
– In what way do you think of the fathers on your caseload as the same or different?
Whatever your dad is or was like, even if you never met him, the probability is that he will have shaped you, your life and your practice in some way.