Failure to engage with fathers and father figures has been evidenced in research and serious case reviews for decades. Following two successful groundbreaking safeguarding projects (funded by DfE and the EU) the Fatherhood Institute has developed a model which has been shown to change local authority safeguarding practice for the better in this area of work.

Children and Young People Now published a feature about our work (20 Jan – 2 Feb 2015 issue), highlighting that following our intervention at one local authority:

• The percentage of fathers involved in their child’s core assessment rose from 47% to 82%;
• The percentage of fathers invited to the initial case conference rose from 72% to 90%; and
• The percentage of fathers whose involvement with the child was discussed at the initial case conference rose from 78% to 100%.

Read Children and Young People Now’s feature here.

Our interventions will help you reduce levels of risk and raise levels of care for children where there are safeguarding concerns, by developing improved engagement with fathers and father figures in social care services. As a result, you’ll see improvements in risk assessment, a reduced burden on mothers, reduced risk of domestic violence, enhanced resources for the care of children and better risk management – leading ultimately to the reduction of harm.

Watch our 10-minute video telling the story of how one local authority changed its approach, with FI’s support here.

We offer:

Audits

We will audit your policies, procedures and practice, producing a report with conclusions and recommendations to improve your practice.  We will then support you to develop an action plan to address these recommendations.  This includes training in the use of an audit tool that you will be able to subsequently use to measure impact and changes in practice.

Strategic roundtables

Culture change requires strong leadership based on a clear understanding of the issues involved, the barriers and potential solutions, and strategies that will make a difference to service delivery.

Training courses

Our two-day training course will help you explore and develop effective practice in engaging and assessing fathers and father figures in child protection work.  The aim of the course is to provide managers and frontline staff with the confidence, knowledge and skills to develop and deliver practical strategies to work with fathers and father figures in order to protect children more effectively through strengthened safeguarding practices and improved risk management.

Workshops

Our half-day workshops for multi-agency staff provide managers and frontline staff with confidence and knowledge to develop and deliver practical strategies to work with fathers and father-figures in order to protect children more effectively through strengthened safeguarding practices and improved risk management.

E-learning

Our online resource will provide you and your staff an understanding of the key issues involved, the barriers and potential approaches to address these.  The resource includes interactive case studies, and DVD excerpts of fathers talking about their experiences of social care and social workers talking about their experiences and lessons learnt.  Built into the resource is an action planning tool.  This one resource is tailored to meet the needs of three different audiences: practitioners, team managers and senior management.

Action learning sets

Our experienced facilitators will guide staff teams through a peer review process to enable them to reflect on their own practice and identify ways of tackling even the most complex of cases.

Good practice guide

We have developed a good practice guide to support social workers to engage more effectively with fathers.  The document is based on an extensive review of national evidence and brings together the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of working with fathers.

Each of the above resources is designed to be used as a stand-alone resource, and to complement the others, in order to provide an overall package which has been evidenced to change practice across a whole service. 

“The Engaging Fathers project has led to significant changes in the Local Authority” LA Quality Assurance Officer

Further detail: 2-day training course

Our two-day training course is designed to explore and develop effective practice in engaging and assessing fathers and father figures in child protection work

Aim of the course
To provide managers and frontline staff with the confidence, knowledge and skills to develop and deliver practical strategies to work with fathers and father figures in order to protect children more effectively through strengthened safeguarding practices and improved risk management.

Learning outcomes
By the end of the course participants will have:

• Greater knowledge of the research evidence and legal framework concerning engagement with fathers
• Identified barriers to working with fathers and discussed strategies to improve practice
• Enhanced their confidence, knowledge and skills to assess, engage and communicate with fathers
• Increased understanding of the benefits of father inclusive practice
• Had the opportunity to identify ways of developing work with fathers within their own practice.

The course is aimed at social work practitioners, advanced practitioners, team leaders, managers and representatives from partner agencies working in the safeguarding arena.  There is a maximum number of 20 participants.

“It has challenged me about my practice and caused me to re-evaluate how I do things”

“Extremely useful and relevant for my own work and practice.”

Six months after training social workers identify significant changes to their practice across the whole service:

“Social workers who have attended passed on skills learnt and importance of engaging fathers.”

Further detail: 0.5-day workshop

Aim of the workshop
To provide managers and frontline staff with confidence and knowledge to develop and deliver practical strategies to work with fathers and father figures in order to protect children more effectively through strengthened safeguarding practices and improved risk management.

Learning outcomes
By the end of the workshop participants will have:

• Greater knowledge of the research evidence and legal framework concerning engagement with fathers
• Identified barriers to working with fathers and discussed strategies to improve practice
• Enhanced confidence and knowledge to support their work with fathers
• Increased understanding of the benefits of father inclusive practice.

This workshop is for multi-agency staff and is relevant for practitioners and managers who are involved in child protection work.  This workshop is for up to 50 participants. The course has evaluated very positively to date, with 98% of participants rating it as either Excellent or Very Good. 

 “Loved this workshop – real, recognisable and can go away thinking what I can do differently.”

Find out more

If you would like to talk through options and/or book some support, please contact our National Practice Development Manager Jeszemma Garratt in the first instance: by email at j.garratt@fatherhoodinstitute.org or tel 0791 786 4130.