Engaging Fathers

There is a growing recognition of the need to support fathers’ (and other male carers) involvement in their childrens’ lives. Evidence is mounting to demonstrate the numerous long-term benefits this has for children. However it is difficult to develop a better understanding of the key issues when the very people that it’s necessary to hear from are often hard to reach. Seashells, a Sure Start centre in Sheerness, initiated a project with the Social Innovation Lab for Kent (SILK) and Engine to look at what kind of support fathers require and how they could provide it.

The team initiated an approach to research, idea generation and design development that engaged a group of more than a dozen Sheerness fathers as collaborators throughout the project. Through time spent with fathers before and during a series of active tool based workshops Engine elaborated a detailed picture of their day-to-day activities and highlighted the useful and ineffective resources available to them in their area. A set of fathers needs were defined that inspired the co-development of a series of on-site and off-site service proposals from which one was chosen and further developed.

Community mapping with fathers on the Isle of Sheppey

This process brought SeaShells staff into close contact with a group of local fathers and demonstrated their commitment to listening and responding. Staff were consistently surprised by project insights including an awareness that the services fathers were looking for were not far off what was being offered to mothers, instead it was their delivery that was inconsistent with the lives of the fathers, in terms of location, environment and schedules.

Beyond the identification of services the project also identified areas of organizational change seen as beneficial for the delivery of better services for fathers. These included a series of proposals for father friendly communications channels, feedback mechanisms, partners and promotions.

Services delivered on their terms

SeaShells was delivered a Project Review, helpful for communicating the strength of the project outputs, and a Service Specification Document for the Go community card. This will be a critical resource for their newly funded dads support worker.