Here are some examples of the work we are doing or have recently completed. Your donations will help us to continue this vital work:

Family policy

Parental leave

We are campaigning hard for a better parental leave system that gives parents greater choice over the sharing of earning and caring responsibilities. Read our proposals.

Parental engagement

We produced a detailed response to the then-Government’s consultation on parental engagement in March 2010, and continue to lobby for school inspectors to assess communication and involvement with fathers as well as mothers. Read our submission.

Fathers and the Coalition Government

In the run-up to the general election in May 2010, we set out Six Signposts for Fatherhood and we continue to brief leading Coalition politicians about fatherhood and family policy. Read about our aspirations for fatherhood policy under the Coalition.

Training and consultancy

Father-inclusive training

Every year we train hundreds of managers and staff in children’s centres, schools, nurseries and preschools, on how to engage with fathers and support father-child relationships in all the work they do. Read more about our training courses.

Hit the Ground Crawling

Family workers and health visitors in children’s centres and maternity services across England are learning how to deliver our groundbreaking peer mentoring programme for new and expectant dads. Read the independent evaluation report of the Hit the Ground Crawling programme.

Consultancy

We provide a mixture of consultancy and training to local authorities and clusters of family services – including everything from ‘father-proofing’ of strategies and mystery shopping exercises to staff training and supervision and direct work with dads. Find out more.

The Dads Included campaign and Dad Test

Dads Included is a campaign aimed at transforming children’s, family and health services, so that they systematically engage with fathers and support father-child relationships. Our new online self-assessment tool, the Dads Included Test, helps family services managers and workers identify how they could make their services more inclusive of fathers, and create an action plan to make change happen. Read more.

Staying Connected

Our workplace based course for separated fathers, called Staying Connected, was developed in Australia. It aims to enable fathers to build positive and child focused relationships with former partners, take better care of their own mental health and wellbeing and stay connected to their children. We have piloted the course with British Telecom, Centrica and Citibank. Find out more about this new course.

Resources for families

The Guide for New Dads

In 2010-11 we distributed more than 600,000 copies of our Guide for New Dads through maternity units, but we need to find the funding to distribute the guide in 2011-12 and beyond. Read more about the guide and its significance.

Fathers’ Story Week

Fathers’ Story Week has been held at schools and nurseries across the country for the last two years, in the week leading up to Father’s Day. Each year the event gets bigger and bigger – find out more at the Fathers’ Story Week website!

Support the Fatherhood Institute now – let’s give Britain’s children the best dads in the world!