Supporting Young Fathers Network
Welcome to TSA’s young fathers network microsite. It has been created to help people working with young fathers. See About this Microsite for more information.
This month's promising practice new case study is:Emerging practice:
Trafford and Derby Young Fathers Projects
Please rollover the thumbnails below to view an image.
Images courtesy of Young Father Project.
Our ongoing research for examples of promising practice has revealed that a number of new projects across the country are beginning to get started in engaging with and supporting young fathers. The Youth Service in Trafford and Derby are particularly promising examples in this respect seeing work with young fathers as part of their broader remit of working with young people. This crucial step-shift in thinking means that their emerging work with young fathers is not limited by short-term funding like many young fathers projects. Instead, the worker’s post in both projects is permanent and split equally between working with young fathers, and other duties within the Youth Service. This funding commitment is important in that it helps to raise the profile and ‘legitimise’ the work. Moreover, it may also indicate a tentative trend towards work with young fathers becoming a more central and ongoing part of mainstream services for young people and/or young parents (mothers and fathers).
Whilst the young fathers projects in both Trafford and Derby are still relatively new (established in July 2007 and January 2007 respectively), they have already achieved valuable gains in terms of engaging with young fathers and thinking strategically about how best to meet young fathers’ needs. The paragraphs below provide brief case studies of these two projects.
Trafford Young Fathers Project
Running since July 2007, the Trafford Young Fathers Project is a new project set-up to work with young fathers aged 14-19 years. Funded on an ongoing basis by the Trafford Youth Service, the project aims to support young men by providing opportunities to explore their experiences of fatherhood addressing issues such as constructions of masculinity, self-esteem, child development, housing, education and training, and employment.
Located originally in Davyhulme Youth Centre, the project initially operated as a young fathers group. However, Dele Araoye (young fathers worker) reports that it quickly became apparent that this was neither practically feasible nor what young fathers wanted or needed. Instead, young men wanted one-to-one support for a number of reasons including issues around territory and aspects of gang culture, as well as the need to explore their experiences in a private and confidential setting. Moreover, young fathers wanted a more accessible and flexible location than a single youth centre could provide. Consequently, most work is now run on a one-to-one basis (including drop-in facilities) using three sites across the area; Davyhulme Youth Centre; TalkShop (Sale Waterside) and; Old Trafford Youth Centre.
In getting started, the young fathers worker reported that a number of strategies were adopted to try and reach young fathers including posters and flyers and contacting a young mothers group already established at the Davyhulme Youth Centre. The project currently engages reguarly with 4-5 young fathers but has so far worked with a total of 15 young fathers since it began last year.
'Everyone benefits if the young father is involved...'
The project has found that doing cooking has been a good way to engage with the young fathers.The project worker feels this is a particularly valuable approach because the young men often do not get the opportunity to cook at home because their parents or partners are resistant to them cooking. Consequently, developing these skills and knowing they can cook meals for their families boosts their self-esteem and confidence.
Although still in the early stages, the Trafford Young Fathers project is currently working towards developing its own dedicated website to be launched in October 2008. Amongst other things, the site will include a video-blog of young fathers’ experiences, as well as outcomes from their current photography project.
Contact:
Tucker Boswell, Trafford Young Fathers Project Coordinator or
Dele Araoye, Young Fathers Worker
Tel: 0161 912 2453
Web: click here for more about this project
Derby Young Fathers Project
Working with young fathers under the age of 25, the Derby Young Fathers Project has been running for approximately 18 months (January, 2007). The project is located within the Youth Service’s Boys and Young Men’s Team and is partly funded by the Derby Teenage Pregnancy Partnership. The worker (Chris Morris) is currently funded to spend 50% of his time working with young fathers, and 50% to other duties within the Youth Service.
With a specific focus on the Derwent area of Derby, the project aims to engage young fathers including step-fathers, and young fathers to-be, offering them a variety of advice, support, and information including (amongst others) areas such as employment, housing, education, parenting skills, budgeting, sexual health, and relationships. The project runs regular drop in sessions at the Derwent Youth Centre as well as group based activities such as group gym sessions, football, as well as opportunities to take part in mentoring programmes (e.g. peer educators scheme) to pass on advice to other young fathers who may use the service in the future. Support is given depending on the young man’s agenda. As the young fathers worker explained:
'A lot of young fathers don’t have any confidence in being with their child… We give them opportunities to engage with their child through outings to raise their confidence and esteem – as well as raise their profile in public. We also offer support around other issues than just parenting like sexual health, education if they are perhaps in school… they often have these hurdles to cross first – so once they have dealt with those they can then get on with being a dad.'
The project has been working with approximately 20 young fathers since it began (three of who are school-age fathers). Although reaching and engaging young fathers can be challenging for new, as well as established projects, Chris Morris has found that being clear with the young father about what their level of involvement can be in the project is an important factor in determining their engagement:
'Some young men can be particularly suspicious of your motives and think you are aligned to the CSA… so it takes a long time to build up that trust, that relationship with them… you need to emphasise that involvement can be as little or as much as they like.'
Contact:
Chris Morris, Young Fathers Worker
Tel: 01332 206 027