Big Lottery Fund: African Caribbean Fatherhood Programme:
Sowing Seeds has secured funding for a 3 year project with a focus on Men/fathers especially African & Caribbean Men/fathers
The project will deliver a series of community based workshops in 3 districts of Greater Manchester and Lancashire with populations of African Caribbean Men. With the focus of media news on the problems affecting children young people and families it is important to look at the role played by men and fathers in children’s and family life. This project will address the issues that impact on men in being responsible and whole human beings and expressing the innate gifts of: –
Vulnerability,
Responsibility,
Love
Care
Compassion
Nurturance.
The project will conduct research into factors that impact on men/fathers gaining the necessary support from public bodies with the remit to provide services that meet these needs within a family support strategy, and will work with existing voluntary and statutory organisations to support the development of community based support for men and Male Inclusive service delivery with agencies through training and consultancy.
Partners in Parenting Project; Sowing Seeds and Family Action North West.
In developing this programme of change, Sowing Seeds and Family action North West will work with partner agencies in the city to:
- Highlight national policy drivers and aspirations
- Influence key local policies
- Identify existing strengths and opportunities for the inclusion of fathers and men in services
- Identify existing barriers to male inclusion at policy and practice level
- Identify training and support needs for staff and volunteers
- Develop and deliver specific training packages and supporting resources
- Support partner agencies to develop a common vision and clarity of purpose regarding the inclusion of fathers and men
- Disseminate models of good practice. Contribute to and learn from the growing body of knowledge available nationally.
Context.
The Partners in Parenting Project will support and inform managers and frontline staff to champion inclusive work with Men/fathers in their services.
Sowing Seeds will be supported by Family action north west to manage and facilitate a series of local network meetings throughout the year. Meetings will address a variety of themes relevant to parents’ needs, such as ‘including fathers and male carers in parenting support, including men in health promotion and prevention especially Maternity services for Young Men,’ linking fatherhood to social exclusion and anti-social behaviour and support back into employment.
The Partners in Parenting Project will provide a focus for managers and practitioners and volunteers to feed into and respond to the way the city incorporates changes in national policy into its policies and practices across service delivery and employment. It will:
- Provide a link between policy development in and its impact on service delivery for fathers and men.
- Link policy development in and policy development in the rest of the North West region, enabling the dissemination of effective policy and practice.
- Link agencies in statutory, voluntary, community and private sectors in order to facilitate joint ways of working to include fathers and men.
Sowing Seeds and Pro-Contact: Family First Pilot
The project will provide a menu of services from which bespoke packages can be constructed according to the needs of the families or individuals targeted. Service users can be anywhere on a continuum from high conflict families in complex circumstances to straightforward ‘single issue’ families, with an emphasis on early intervention and prevention to make escalation of problems less likely. Services will be provided either directly through the project or through seamless mechanisms for referral on or signposting.
Services are provided through a partnership of organisations enabling packages of direct intervention and expertise in all but exceptional circumstances. The partnership is more than the sum of its parts in that partner agencies and staff will contribute their own expertise and resources as part of an integrated service where skills-sharing is encouraged.
Some parents and families will be referred by community agencies, usually those already involved with the families they refer, (e.g. SureStart centres), solicitors – encouraging intervention before court proceedings – the partner agencies and CAFCASS/courts. The bulk of referrals, however, will come from targeted presentations on co-parenting and post-separation strategies, delivered in schools, family centres and other community venues and agencies. ‘Parenting Apart’ presentations and accompanying displays explore with parents how to manage co-parenting and addressing the needs of the children after parental separation. The presentation is relevant to all separated or separating parents. Those families requiring further support would be identified by referrers or sign-posters (the agencies publicising or hosting the events), by the parents themselves or by way of a straightforward assessment as part of the presentations.
Those families requiring further intervention will be further assessed for their needs and offered interventions that might include:
- Contact work – supervised, assisted or indirect contact; assessment; negotiation/conflict resolution
- Advice – financial management; child maintenance; debt; housing; benefits
- Therapy – art therapy; family therapy; counselling/CBT
- Parenting – individual and group programmers
- Children’s work – identity and life story work; assessment of wishes or feelings
- Group work – Fathers’ support; Better Dads (for fathers exhibiting conflict behaviors); indirect contact
Families will be able to access the services through individual appointment, drop-in and programmers.