Policy and Politics
'Dads wanted'
The Department for Education is recruiting dads with children under the age of five to contribute to a document, to be published in the summer, on the services and support available to families with young children.
The document will be based on fathers’ opinions of the services, support and information available for families with children, from pregnancy to the age of five.
It is understood that the DfE is particularly keen to hear from Dads in Sheffield and London.
Fathers who take part will be interviewed and filmed by the department, with clips of the videos available to view on the DfE website.
Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Pre-school Learning Alliance, said, ‘We warmly welcome any Government initiative that encourages fathers to be more responsible and more involved in all aspects of their children’s learning and development.’
‘The importance to young children of having dads who are good fathers to them cannot be underestimated in this day and age. Most dads want to be good fathers for their children but some are not able to be due to their own circumstances.’
‘We encourage all our settings to be "dad-friendly" and recognise the need to appropriately use different approaches when working with mothers and fathers. We have seen this firsthand in many cases, for example, with the fathers who attend our Dads’ Time group in Croydon and are an inspiration to their children.’
James Meeks, extended services co-ordinator, Firbank Children's Centre, said, 'We welcome any review which will help children's services with the way they engage dads and family men. The feedback we regularly receive suggest that the lack of confidence men experience, with regard to taking a larger role in the children's development and care, can be tracked back to early engagement with services.
'In this locality we try to join up the work we do engaging men and try to ensure this ethos extends to our partner agencies too. Increasing evidence shows us the benefits good engagement with dads and family men is having and we hope this review will confirm this and suggest other innovative ways of including dads and family men in childcare.'
