The joint Department for Children Schools and Families and Department of Health Child Health Strategy, Healthy lives, brighter futures: The strategy for children and young people’s health (DCSF/DH, 2009), launched on 12 February 2009, set out a challenging vision for health and social services to work together to improve children’s wellbeing.

“Parents are the key to achieving the best physical and mental health and wellbeing outcomes for their children. This strategy sets out the principles of the relationship between parents and services. These principles are that: Mothers and fathers are provided with the information they need to help their children lead healthy lives.”

Amongst the key recommendations of the strategy in terms of fatherhood, are:

• A new Antenatal Education and Preparation for Parenthood Programme which is focused on fathers and mothers.

• Work with ‘identified PCTs’ to pilot new methods of engaging mothers and fathers in the delivery of the Healthy Child Programme, in particular to ensure that fathers are involved in the reviews which are at the heart of the programme.

Who is the course for?

Practitioners in Health, Social Services and related services, who work with fathers, or plan to make their practice more inclusive of fathers.

What the course covers

The course shows you how to develop and implement a whole-team approach to engaging with fathers. We are the lead organisation on father-inclusive practice in the UK, and can train your own staff – and staff from local agencies with whom you will need to work if you are to fulfil government requirements – to deliver this agenda.

The format for each course reflects the national policy agenda and our extensive knowledge of what works.

Aim of the course

To help managers, front-line workers and volunteers working with families and children develop their practice in engaging with fathers.

Trainees will:

1. Explore and develop strategies to engage with fathers

2. Begin to develop the confidence, knowledge and skills to work effectively with fathers

3. Discover a ‘whole team’ approach to engaging fathers.

The course includes exploration of:

• The unique influences that fathers have on nutrition, obesity, brain development and mental health.

• What children need from their fathers.

 • Barriers and bridges to positive father-child engagement in services.

 • The personal and cultural issues which shape our perceptions of men and our beliefs about gender roles.

What do people learn from our courses? 

“How to engage fathers in the lives of their babies right from the start and get them to do more with their babies and support their partners” (Community midwife)

‘How to effectively engage fathers with our children’s centre – and how we can support the children centre staff to do this’ (Children’s Centre Manager).

“The kind of simple but effective strategies can be introduced to make our contact with fathers during home visits better.” (Health Visitor)

“How to engage fathers from Antenatal and how to adapt systems with dads in mind; to be systematically inclusive – even a small change can be dramatic” (Health Visitor)

“The whole day was a very good time to reflect on the roles of men/dads” (Health Visitor)

Costs

One day course for up-to 15 delegates: £1,550 inc. expenses

One day Course for up-to 25 delegates: £2,100 inc. expenses

Each delegate receives a free copy of the FI’s Toolkit for Developing Father-Inclusive Services and Working with Fathers: a guide for anyone working with families.

For more information and to book this course contact Charlie Rice, Head of Health and Corporate Development by email c.rice@fatherhoodinstitute.org or tel 07824 888 439.