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Five reasons I love working with young fathers

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Ben Wilkes is a Young Fathers Worker at the charity Romsey Mill in Cambridge. Here he shares why he loves working with young dads and explains the difference his work makes.

I have been working with young fathers (14 to 25 years old) for a little over two years now and I consider it a privilege supporting these young lads, walking with them through a small section of their life aiding them in making the transition from being someone who is often still learning to look out for themselves, to one who is competent in caring for a fully dependent human being.

 1. It brings new perspectives

Young Fathers approach their role in such a fresh way, expressing new ways of thinking, feeling and ideas about how to raise a child in the modern world. As is the case with other similar supporting roles, the learning that takes place is often both ways!

2. It’s inspiring

Having a baby can be a real catalyst for change. I have seen first-hand a young father that is experiencing significant multiple personal challenges yet still be passionately consistent in his desire to be a part of his child’s life, which has actually spurred him on to seek and accept help.

3. It gives young dads a voice

Another part of this role that I love is being able to give a voice to the voiceless. Whether in meetings with professionals, negotiating with the mother of the child or simply sharing personal stories of the young fathers, this role enables me to speak up for a part of society which rarely gets a voice. I revel in challenging the common stereotype of young fathers, since what I see on a regular basis is genuine enthusiasm, a sense of purpose and a desire to embrace a new found role in order to be the best father they know how to be.

4. It benefits children

There is a lot of research that shows when the father is actively involved, the child flourishes in many ways. By coming alongside the young father to support their involvement in the child’s life there is already the potential for huge benefits. Often this group can feel invisible or insignificant, so by having a dedicated worker, it communicates that they have a very important part to play.

 5. It makes a difference to young dads 

It would not be right to exclude the young fathers’ voice from this article… so the following is a snapshot of comments that I have collected from young fathers who feel they have benefitted from accessing the support of a dedicated Young Fathers Worker:

‘If [this service] wasn’t there, it would be a struggle to communicate and get my point across to the mother of my daughter. I think it’s made the mother a bit more understanding about the situation.’

‘My confidence is a lot better at doing things, I’m more confident around him[baby] I know what to do and what not to do. I’m a better person and a better dad than what I was at the start.’

‘Yea I definitely feel better supported for the birth of my child and raising my child and knowing whatever problem I have I can call up and sort it with him [Young Fathers Worker].’

Ben Wilkes is a Young Fathers Worker at the Cambridge-based charity Romsey Mill. You can support their work by making a donation at Just Giving.

—Photo: Flickr/Samantha Cohen

To mark the launch of the film Down Dog, insideMAN is running a series of articles about fatherhood throughout February and we’d love you to get involved. You can join the conversation on twitter by using the hashtag #MenBehavingDADly; leave a comment in the section below or email us with your thoughts and ideas for articles to insideMANeditor@gmail.com.

For more information about the film see www.downdogfilm.com

We need to change our minds about young fathers

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Seany O’Kane explains why he’s a champion for young fathers

—This is article #83 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys 

Time and time again when the subject of ‘young fathers’ is written about in the UK press, it’s not surprising to see words used such as  ‘feckless’, ‘irresponsible’ or ‘absent’ to describe them. Scandalous headlines often conjured up by reporters who have a total disregard for how complex the lives of young dads are, in some cases, a teenager embarking upon parenthood with no knowledge of what it means to be a man, never mind be a dad.

If anything the use of the word ‘absent’ when discussing young fathers should be aptly described when discussing just how much lack of support exists for them.

As a specialist fatherhood practitioner, I dedicate my time to bettering the lives of young men who require such support in relation to their parenting. Several years ago my organisation wanted to bridge a gap that existed within children and young people’s services particularly in South London, a gap that failed to address the needs of fathers in social care, specifically younger fathers from much more disenfranchised backgrounds.

Mums get better services than dads 

Services to help these young men were much less limited than those in place to help young mothers and what was hugely evident was when dads received support in the run-up to becoming a parent, they were more likely to be a prominent figure in their child’s life. Therefore minimising the socio-economical risk factors often associated with children growing up without a father present.

The work I carry out ensures that young fathers are provided with a tailored service, helping to address their parenting needs but even before I am able to get a young expectant dad to grasp his role in relation to fatherhood; it may be that he has other presenting factors that hinder his ability to appropriately safeguard his child.

For example, I have to assess each young father or expectants level of need and work with them to achieve their parental goals, but when dealing with challenges such as gang involvement, homelessness, domestic abuse and drug misuse to name but a few, it certainly makes the role of a fatherhood practitioner much more intricate.

One of the biggest obstacles I am likely to encounter throughout this area of work is not the engaging of the young men themselves in the service (if anything it is their sheer determination to want to have a relationship with their child that contributes to achieving outcomes in a much quicker timescale), but the difficulties that I face when working with external health and social care professionals to make changes to their practice.

Dads are part of the solution

Time and time again I witness young fathers whose children are part of a social care plan and yet they have not been asked to attend any child protection meetings arranged by social services to determine the outcome for their child. Young men in situations like this are left completely out of the picture suggesting that the local authority must view young fathers to be part of the overall ‘problem’ within social care.

Yet I know that when a dad is considered in the future of his child’s life, if he is part of a child protection plan and he himself is offered the right support to make changes for the better, his involvement can actually become a major part of the solution in the deciding factor of the child’s future.

The same can be said for young expectant fathers who are completely left out of antenatal care. I have assisted hundreds of young men who have expressed that they have never met their family midwife or ever received contact from her (in 2012 there were 132 practicing male midwives out of 20,000 registered in the UK).

Dads want to be involved 

Despite this unsettling information, the one other thing that all these young men had in common was that they ‘did’ want to be included, that they wanted to be acknowledged as the equal parent and that they just wanted to be validated in some way by the health professionals who were in place to ensure their unborn baby was properly cared for.

It’s not uncommon for a midwife to carry out a home visit to a young couple’s home and for the young man to feel that he isn’t being included, that the midwife will focus all their attention towards mother and the unborn baby not even enquiring how he might be feeling or exploring what support he might benefit from. It’s common for young couples to undergo difficulties in their relationship following the birth of a baby often resulting in separation.

If the young man feels excluded as an equal parent right from the beginning and if he is being prevented from having contact with his child by the mother, the option to ‘walk away’ may appear to be in his best interests when in reality, given the chance he would like nothing more than to be there for his child, this applies to young dads I have assisted regardless of whether they are aged 14 or 25.

So what needs to change?

There needs to be a real cultural shift in the way health and social care throughout the UK considers the role of a young father in the lives of their children and to ensure that the appropriate education is offered to students training to become midwives, social workers, health visitors etc. so that they have a genuine understanding for father-inclusive practice.

The end result will mean more confident health practitioners and more young fathers feeling included and equal in their child’s lives regardless of whether or not they are in a relationship with the child’s mother. This will result in less children being separated from their fathers and contributing to overall healthy child development. Happier healthier children will mean a much happier healthier society for all of us. After all isn’t that what we all want?

—Picture credit:David Amsler

Seany O’ Kane is fatherhood practitioner at the St Michael’s Fellowship.

You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com. 

WWM becomes first men and boys’ charity to win gender prize at Diversity Awards

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Working With Men is a charity doing incredible work engaging with marginalised young men on a range of issues, including violence, fatherhood and education. Here the charity’s Chief Executive, Shane Ryan, discusses why it’s ground-breaking for a men and boys’ charity to win a gender diversity award, their Manifesto for Men and the important work that lays ahead during their 10th Anniversary year.

—This is article #25 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys 

Last month we won the Community Organisation Award for Gender at the National Diversity Awards. I was genuinely surprised when they announced our name.  At that moment I was sitting back in my chair getting ready to applaud the winner, when I realised they were playing our video on screen and saying our name.

It is a significant moment for us in many ways – not only are we getting a clear message from people that what we are doing is recognised and needed – but it means disadvantaged boys and young men have finally made it onto the public agenda.

We are the first ever charity working specifically with helping boys and young men to receive such an award. Previous recipients of this award have all been women’s organisations. This is great, but there is a penny dropping – true equality needs to work both ways for men and women for everyone to move forward together.

Equality for men and women

Families are the perfect example of the place where the two things can go hand in hand, where there is reciprocity between equality for men and equality for women.

Imagine if we offered all fathers the same level of support and services we offer mothers. We have nearly a quarter of a million fathers in the UK that are stay-at-home dads and two million mums. In 1993 there were less than 120,000 dads. Things have changed. Some women are out at work earning more than men. How are we accommodating that change? This is the reality of 21st century Britain.

The more we offer family services for men, the more we make it OK for them, and, for those women, to make conscious decisions on how they are going to live their lives. This removes the shackle, or the onus, that is constantly on mums to look after children.

If we want to reduce the incidence of children’s involvement in social care, if we want to foster more equitable arrangements around child rearing and parental roles and want a more equal society where both women’s and men’s roles in life and wider society are not tied to historic stereotypes and positions, this has to extend to family life as well as work place and public life.  We have quite rightly witnessed the emancipation of women from enforced roles within society and now hope and expect these rights and freedoms will grow and continue.

Everyone of both genders and from whatever cultural or ethnic background need to be afforded the same rights and opportunities including when it comes to children, families and parenting roles; if we set an expectation or precedent that men can and should be involved in all aspects of parenting not just in the financial provider or occasional babysitter role, we make an important statement about equality for all generally.

Breaking down boundaries

 The work we are doing is breaking down boundaries and is forcing a change in mindset. Not only are we truly humbled that so many people would go out of their way to vote for us among such strong competition, we also recognise – as someone said to me the other day – we now “deserve to be in that field”.

We have really important work ahead of us. For example we want to record the numbers of fathers who are still in school.  Most of the time people don’t acknowledge they are fathers – so understandably they struggle with it. These young men have just been told they are going to be a dad, they can’t get time off to go to the antenatal appointments or the birth. Rather than brand them as boys who need to be punished, we need to keep them involved with the family and support them – the outcomes are better for the whole family, and the young mums we’ve spoken to agree with this as does the associated research. This is why we believe the creation of statutory requirements to capture father’s data where possible by health and children’s services is essential particularly where they may be vulnerable

“An extraordinary 10th anniversary year”

Chief Executive of Working With Men Shane Ryan receives the Community Organisation Award for Gender

We are having an extraordinary 10th anniversary year. It’s snowballing; we have cross-party support for the work we are doing, the next all-parliamentary group on fatherhood is around the corner; press interest is high; we are being asked to speak at  conferences and universities; our fundraising is growing, our profile is stronger, and we are looking forward to marking International Men’s Day on 19 Nov.

And here we are, a small organisation with a funny name!

On a serious note, what is significant is that our national and parliamentary work is growing. Two years ago we took over the secretariat for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Fatherhood and that added a new dimension to the work.

In this crucial time before the general election we need to show politicians what we have learned in the last decade about how to target marginalised young men and make them feel they have a stake in society. At this point I would like to thank the organisations we also now work with nationally, including Barnardos, Mums Net and the Royal College of Midwifery for their support at the party conferences recently it shows a real shift in mindset. With this in mind our core three-pronged strategy works on a ‘Manifesto for Men’ for the 2015 General Election, developing a robust evidence-based programme that begins to address inequalities in health and education.

We will continue to push the message that there are other paths to walk down – we need to gear up our young men particularly with the tools to do that. Otherwise they can often become lost and unsure what their responsibilities are.

There is more than one way to be male.

Thank you to everyone for your support. We are really proud to have won this award.

To find out more about the great work being done by Working With Men visit their website here and get involved in the discussion on twitter by using #WWM10.

You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

 

The views expressed in these articles are not necessarily the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

 

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com.