Partnership working: Fatherhood Institute
The Fatherhood Institute with 4Children are recruiting 12 local authorities over the next 2 years to roll out and evaluate a package of training and support. The package is funded by the Department for Education and consists of three elements.
Family Foundations
Family Foundations is a series of participatory classes for expectant couples. The programme helps prepare couples by fostering attitudes and skills related to positive family relationships.
Family Foundations has been rigorously evaluated and research has shown that Family Foundations produces positive outcomes in family relationships, parenting quality and parents’ physical aggression towards children.
The innovative short‐term goal of Family Foundations is to promote positive co-parenting. Recent research indicates that positive co-parenting has a strong influence on parenting and on child outcomes.
The goals of Family Foundations are to:
- Decrease post-natal depression in mothers
- Improve both parents’ parenting sensitivity/warmth
- Reduce harsh parenting by both parents
- Nurture positive couple relationships
- Encourage positive child self‐regulation
Local Authority Support Package
This consultancy support will include a mini-audit/consultation to review how father- inclusive parenting services for families are and help with planning next steps to develop a strategy for this element of commissioning. Other elements will be a one day course for up to 20 parenting practitioners to help deliver father-inclusive parenting provision in a gender aware way and an interactive e learning programme for commissioners of services for parents.
Staying Connected
Staying Connected is a one session intervention for separated fathers and mothers to help them consider the role of separated fathers and maintain a constructive relationship with the mother/father of their children, look after their own physical and mental health and learn a variety of techniques and approaches to staying connected to their children and facilitating contact or supportiveness of contact in the other parent.
Staying Connected was developed in Australia to support both fathers and mothers to manage post-separation relationships in a positive way. Evaluations of the programme show significant impacts on participants’ mental health and well being and improvements in their relationships with their children and with the mother/father of their children.