Engaging Fathers:

1
Engaging Fathers

• Policy and Practice Issues

2
Plan

• New Labours social policies
• Fathers an overview of the policy issues
• The role of services
• Lessons emerging from research into practice

3
Social policies

• Responding to new social risks globalisation,
  family change, fertility patterns
• A new paradigm the social investment state
  (or LEGO?)

4
The social investment state

• Knowledge economy
• Re-defining welfare integration into the market
  rather than protection from it (have recent
  economic events modified this?)
• Future oriented investing in children

5
The knowledge economy

• We are all in the thin air business. Our
  children will not have to toil in dark factories,
  descend into pits or suffocate in mills, to hew
  raw materials and turn them into manufacturing
  products. They will make their livings through
  their creativity, ingenuity and imagination
• Work is becoming more knowledge based and that
  needs to happen to cope with the challenges posed
  by globalisation
• Fact of fiction? The growth of hairdressing!!!!!

6
Integration into the market

• Post-war welfare state and extension of social
  rights for male waged workers
• However, a new paradigm has emerged across the EU
  .
• Conditionality no rights without
  responsibilities
• The impact of the economic crisis? Markets need
  morals (Gordon Brown in The Observer, Nov, 9th,
  2008) But !!!!

7
Investing in children

• Sure Start and Childrens Centres
• Expansion of Early Years
• Role of schools and extended schools
• Every Child Matters

8
Fathers and Family policy

• Key elements WFB, uncoupling of parenthood and
  marriage, state intervention much more extensive
  and all-encompassing
• All of these have particular and complex
  implications for fathers, fathering and
  fatherhood

9
WFB policies

• Key changes flexible working, child care, new
  care leaves
• What are the drivers?
• Key point is that its not gender equality-
  indeed policies may reinforce childcare as the
  primary responsibility of mothers

10
Parenthood is for life

• Child support
• Contact
• Mandatory birth registration
• Birth fathers rule?
• From a position in which marriage had been the
  primary mechanism for grounding fathers rights,
  fathers are now seen to have a more direct
  unmediated relationship with their children
  (Collier and Sheldon, 2008)

11
Responsible parents

• Host of developments. Parenting programmes,
  Every Parent Matters agenda, parenting advisors
• Role of social policies and the role of law

12
The role of services

• Unprecedented naming of parents as mothers and
  fathers in a range of documents
• The influence of the Fatherhood Institute

13
Gender Equality Duty

• The new duty to promote gender equality came into
  force in April, 2007. The duty affects police,
  local government, the NHS etc. It also affects
  private organisations fulfilling public
  functions.
• Under previous laws, action could only be taken
  against public bodies after they discriminated on
  grounds of sex. Now they must take steps to
  proactively promote equality between men and
  women- must take account of their differing needs
  when making policies and providing services and
  not just react to complaints when things go
  wrong.

14
Every Parent Matters

• Fathers matter to childrens development.
  Father-child relationships- be they positive,
  negative or lacking- have profound and wide
  ranging impacts on children that last a lifetime,
  particularly for children from the most
  disadvantaged backgrounds. Research shows that
  where fathers have early involvement in a childs
  life

15
Continued

• There is a positive relationship to later
  educational achievement
• There is an association with good parent-child
  relationship in adolescence and
• Children in separated families are more protected
  from mental health problems
• (p, 6).

16
Barriers to fathers involvement (Every Parent
Matters)

• Insensitive services
• Overtly female focus and culture lack of
  confidence in explaining to female service users
  why it is important to engage with fathers
• Under estimation of the significance of a
  fathers involvement if he is not visible to the
  service, or not living with the child

17
Every Parent Matters continued ..

• Irrespective of the degree of involvement they
  have in the care of their children, fathers
  should be offered routinely the support and
  opportunities they need to play their parental
  role effectively (p, 10)

18
The Childrens Plan

• standards and training will reflect the need for
  public services to engage with both fathers and
  mothers except where there is a clear risk to the
  child to do so (P, 23)
• Focus in Childrens plan is on birth fathers
  including those who are non-resident
• Supporting contact
• What are the problems with government
  constructions?

19
Some lessons from research

• Gender of the worker is not important
• But it is important to encourage gender talk
  when changing services
• The anxieties and desires of workers where is
  the space???
• Context in which service is being delivered is
  important
• Fathers, masculinity and help-seeking- seeing
  fathers as experts- difficulties with
  compulsion
• Recognising mothers as gatekeepers for fathers
  involvement
• What kind of activities?
• Opening hours of services
• Community work approach is often appropriate

20
Fathers Matter research

• Rounds 1 and 2
• Complexity of the families
• Domestic violence and substance misuse issues
• Lack of recording about fathers
• Fathers and rights talk
• Mothers wanted services for fathers
• Lack of training and support for workers
• Lack of interest or suspicion about the issue
  influence of fathers rights movement

21
References

• Ashley, C, et al ( 2006) Fathers Matter,
  www.frg.org.uk
• Roskill, C et al (2008) Fathers Matter 11,
  www.frg.org.uk
• Featherstone, B., Rivett, M. and Scourfield, J
  (2007) Working with men in health and social
  care, Sage

22
Some references

• R. Collier and S. Sheldon (2008) Fragmenting
  Fatherhood A Socio-legal study, Hart Publishing
• Dermott, E (2008) Intimate Fatherhood, Routledge
• Featherstone, B (forthcoming) Contemporary
  Fathering Theory, Policy and Practice, Policy
  Press
• Social Politics International Studies in Gender,
  State and Society (Oxford University Press)