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COMPLETED
Supporting Young Fathers: Examples of Promising Practice
Background
There has been a growing recognition that services that cater for young parents often tend to focus purely on mothers. Where services do also aim to support young fathers, they often struggle to find ways to do this effectively. To strengthen its work on young fathers, the Teenage Pregnancy Unit (TPU) commissioned TSA to draw together examples of 'good practice' of current work with young fathers from around England. TSA was also asked to produce a publication of this support work and disseminate the findings by organising a conference around the subject in 2006.
Research
The research consisted of three main parts as follows:
a) Collating a data base of promising practice
A total of 33 projects and services for young fathers were identified through various networks and contacts. Case-examples selected differed in a number of ways such as location (different parts of England as well as a mix of urban and more rural), type of organisation (e.g. 'mainstream' services vs. special or more targeted projects etc), and the ethnicity and age of the young fathers the agencies were working with. Individual, focus group, and telephone interviews were then carried out during June and July 2006 concentrating on how projects and services engage and sustain contact with young fathers. In addition, we also examined how this was achieved through individual or group work focusing on issues such as training and employment, housing, health, and parenting.
b) Producing a publication on examples of promising practice
Based on these case examples, a publication was written that was aimed primarily at individuals either working (or thinking about working) with young fathers. 'Supporting young fathers: examples of promising practice' conveys the voices of practitioners and aims to de-mystify young fathers work for less experienced practitioners whilst also offering useful 'hints and tips' for those who are more experienced. The publication is likely to be of value to anyone working (or thinking about working) with young parents - fathers and mothers. It is now available to purchase from TSA's publications department. A 4-page Executive Summary is also available and is free to download from TSA's website.
c) Organising a conference in December 2006
TSA held a one-day conference in London on 12th December 2006 to disseminate the findings of work with young fathers and officially 'launch' the publication.
Project staff:
Dr Nigel Sherriff was the research officer working on the project and Kevin Lowe was the project manager.
Download documents:
Supporting Young Fathers Executive Summary
December 2006