Children’s minister: Call on services to better support dads

ENGLAND – Children’s minister Beverley Hughes has announced a ‘Think Fathers’ campaign to dispel the myth that dads are the ‘invisible parent’. Research the government has published shows that public, health and family services across the board need to go much further in recognising and working with fathers.

Kick-starting a debate at the Family and Parenting Institute, Ms Hughes wants to build up the expectation of fathers’ involvement within public services – from birth, through children’s centres in the early years and in schools – and within society more generally.

With research showing that children who grow up with strong father figures are less likely to get into crime, take drugs, grow up with mental health problems or struggle to form relationships, the children’s minister announced that the government will be working with the Fatherhood Institute to look at how to better support dads and encourage them to play an active role in their families.

To push forward the debate on active fatherhood, the campaign will:

• For the first time to bring together employers, children’s services, practitioners and voluntary organisations to look at what more can be done to give dads the support they need.

• Publish a ‘Think Fathers’ guide to help children’s services to improve the way they work with dads.

• Hold a ‘Think Fathers’ summit to encourage public services, professionals and the voluntary sector to look distinctively at fathers – not just generically at parents.

• Launch an on-line ‘Dads Dialogue’, with fathers, mothers and children creating a user-generated collection of views, feelings, anecdotes and memories about fatherhood, family policy, challenges and successes.

“All children need active and engaged fathers and we must do all we can to make sure they get one. I want to start the debate about what we can all do to help get dads more involved,” said Ms Hughes.

“The ‘Think Fathers’ campaign is a fantastic start and over the coming months I am looking forward to building up a coalition who can help us drive this forward including government, the Fatherhood Institute, practitioners and children’s services.

“Together, we can bring home the messages to families, public services and the voluntary services that parental responsibilities should be shared equally among parents and we can reverse the outdated and out of touch assumption that dads are a bolt-on family accessory – nice to have but not essential.”