Trust for the Study of Adolescence

Home

Welcome to the young fathers network microsite. It has been created to help people working with young fathers. See About this Microsite for more information.

Our latest article concentrates on involving young fathers in service delivery.

Understanding Participatory Approaches with Young Fathers

The following article is based on interviews conducted with four practitioners who actively encourage young fathers to play a role in the delivery of projects to other young fathers. We are calling these ways of working ‘participatory approaches’. As discussed in the ‘Understanding Group Work’ article on this micro site, group work can lead to peer support between participants for example, through young fathers sharing experiences, providing practical or emotional advice and or being informal role models for each other. However, as you will see below, participatory approaches go beyond informal peer support, though they often include elements of it.

Examples of participatory approaches

The practitioners interviewed here developed the participation of young fathers in project delivery in various ways. It is important to stress that participatory approaches were used in diverse settings (eg Teenage Pregnancy Teams, charities NGOs and in partnership with Childrens Centres) and with diverse young fathers in terms of ethnicity and class. In one project, all group sessions were co-facilitated by a worker and a young father and the sessions could cover a multitude of topics and skills - from ante and post natal issues to football, self defence, story-telling and father and children play sessions. Many of the young fathers involved in this project were from BME backgrounds.

“All groups are co facilitated by local fathers - nothing is delivered without active involvement of young fathers/young people ... [we are] utilising their skills and talents and getting them to fit around our aims and objectives around parenting.”

Another project had two experienced young fathers, running groups on various practical and other relevant issues eg around safety in the home, communication in relationships.

“Basically the dads come in on a Thursday to set up, plan and do any food provision, do shopping for the group...and if not many people show they just sit and talk or either I’ll pop in and run something or they'll do it themselves.”

One practitioner worked closely with a young father in the design of all sessions run in the project as well as co facilitating with him. In another project there were training opportunities in peer education and young fathers were going to educate other young people about teenage parenthood in schools and services. All of the practitioners interviewed talked about extensive consultation with young fathers about the services delivered to them.

Pathways to participation for young fathers

Practitioners agreed that young fathers had to meet certain criteria if they were going to be more involved in project delivery although those opportunities were open to all participants. A range of criteria were identified eg having used the young fathers’ project/s themselves; enthusiasm and energy for parenting issues and a child focused approach; demonstrating a capacity for change; being flexible and adaptable; and having the capacity to work within broader organisational philosophies. Sometimes the young fathers involved in participatory approaches were minimally older than the target group having recently left the ‘young father’ category. Often pathways into participation for young fathers were linked to, and supported by existing volunteer schemes with the organisations. Some young fathers might start working in projects around young fatherhood and move to on to other things according to their interests and skills.

Practical issues

Young fathers involved in co facilitation, mentoring or other types of volunteering received as much training as possible in areas such as: child protection; basic health and safety; counselling; play work; confidentiality; as well as undergoing other organisational induction processes.

“We've managed to use some of our very limited training budget for them to do some training and ...we got them onto the Fundamentals of Counselling course and... the communications exercises they learnt, they ran for the group and relationship issues.”

Generally young fathers’ expenses were covered e.g. travel and sometimes nominal payments were made for very regular work. In one organisation, young fathers were paid normal casual rates when they did core organisational work. Young fathers were encouraged to apply for work within the organisation where appropriate and their volunteering was often conceptualised as training. All young fathers involved in work with other young fathers were supervised by the relevant practitioners.

 “We have a volunteer scheme so they'll come through and they get supervision, discuss who they want to take involvement further - what more needs to be done, skills and next steps, make plans. From there it’s to get things off the ground and support them in the delivery of it.”

Why do participatory approaches in working with young fathers?

Participatory approaches discussed are underpinned by a variety of philosophies and aims including: empowerment of young people; raising self esteem and confidence; developing skills and employment and training opportunities; and engaging communities in the issues that affect them.

“Raising aspirations and utilising the skills of local community and also acting as role models for younger fathers particularly the expectant fathers - guys with less experience to come up is a great example of what local community members can do...”

One practitioner thought that it was sometimes easier to get fathers involved in community issues than fatherhood issues initially, but that fathering skills improved as a consequence of community mobilisation.

“We now have a critical mass of dads where they are all quite militant behind this idea of breaking some of the stereotypes of what fathers should and shouldn't do and what parenting they can do and they are quite confident around being quite silly with children and expressing themselves emotionally.”

Young people were viewed by practitioners as having expert knowledge, vital skills and potential worth investing in. On a practical note, workers thought that young fathers engage much more with services that they have a real sense of ownership and responsibility for.

Challenges in working with participatory approaches

Practitioners agreed that participatory approaches are time consuming in the start up period and need a lot of energy and enthusiasm from workers and fathers. Group dynamics can be difficult for the young fathers to manage particularly when they are both peers and workers. One young father said he felt he’d gone to the ‘other side’. Workers also had to manage the expectations of young fathers particularly when groups and projects developed differently, with fluctuating interest from other young fathers.

Another issue raised was how workers can impart their professional knowledge about what it means to a good parent to young fathers; peer knowledge is not always enough. The practitioners interviewed here did not report finding it difficult to share control of projects with young fathers. Workers all noted that young fathers involved in service delivery could move on without much notice and some of them did eg to jobs and training etc. Accepting and adapting to this was an important part of working with young people.

“Young people have changing passions. You have to accept that they move on and you need to prepare for natural input and exit”

Learning points

Tips from practitioners

1. Developing the participation of young fathers in service/project delivery takes time and is a process with inevitable stops and starts.
2. Try and link participatory approaches to broader organisational aims and values and, infrastructures eg volunteering.
3. Accept that young fathers might move on and have contingency plans to deal with this.
4. Avoid putting too much pressure on young fathers and offer help where you have skills eg around funding applications.
5. Look to maximise young fathers’ opportunities even if it means encouraging them to leave the project.
6. Be prepared for young fathers to develop real independence through participatory approaches – at group and individual levels.

Questions

1. What model are you working to and what do you want to achieve? What are your goals?
2. How does the participatory approach you are developing sit alongside other values, aims and infrastructures of your project or organisation?
3. What kinds of young fathers would best be involved in participatory approaches in your project/service?
4. What can you offer young fathers in terms of support and training?
5. How will you deal with issues of payment/remuneration/ reimbursement?
6. What might be the challenges of doing participatory work in your context and how will you deal with these?

Learning Points

• Participatory approaches to working with young fathers involved sharing the responsibility of project/service delivery with young fathers themselves. This happened in a range of different ways according to the resources of the organisation eg young fathers facilitating or co facilitating group sessions, helping to design the content and form of young fathers’ projects and talking about their experiences with young fathers, other practitioners or young people. Participation is usefully understood as a process that runs along a continuum. The amount and type of participation that practitioners and young fathers achieved was linked to issues such as: resources, commitment, and the number of young fathers who get involved.
• Despite the huge potential gains of participatory approaches, they were time consuming in the start up period and required energy and enthusiasm from workers and fathers throughout. Other challenges included managing young fathers’ expectations and being very clear about how the participatory approaches linked to existing service/project processes, aims and values. As young fathers often needed to move on, it was useful to think about who might replace them. Careful attention to how both young fathers and workers feel about the changes in roles, in particular how this affects peer relationships for young fathers is helpful.
• Young fathers involved in co facilitation, mentoring or other types of volunteering received as much training as possible in areas such as: child protection; basic health and safety; counselling; play work; confidentiality; as well as undergoing other organisational induction processes. Generally young fathers’ expenses were covered e.g. travel and sometimes nominal payments were made for very regular work. All young fathers involved in work with other young fathers received supervision by the relevant practitioners.

Interviewees

The four practitioners that volunteered to speak to a YPF researcher about their work with young fathers using participatory approaches were:

1. Andy Wood
MAP - Young Fathers Project
The Risebrow Centre
Chantry Road
Norwich NR2 1RF
Tel 01603 766994 Mob 0773 656 1973

2. Norman Nur
Young Dad’s Worker (Bernados Teenage Pregnancy Service)
Orchard House, Buston Terrace
Jesmond
Newcastle NE2 2JL
Tel 0191 2300196

3. Matt Hay
New Dad Project
St Michael’s Fellowship
136 Streatham High Rd
London SW16 1BW
0208 86776888

NB Matt now works for Latimer Creative Media a social enterprise that works with young people to create campaigns that are meaningful to them (www.latimercreativemedia.com.) Seany O’Kane can be contacted about the New Dad Project.

4. Simon King
Teenage Pregnancy Advisor (Young Fathers)
Teenage Pregnancy Support Service
Conifer House
32-36 Prospect Street
Hull HU2 8PX
01482 336379/07769971267