CYSCP
Building relationships and connecting with fathers and male carers
Learning from Practice: Building better relationships with fathers
The City of York Safeguarding Children Partnership (CYSCP) has identified a priority area in relation to professionals actively working to build and form relationships with fathers and male carers.
It has been regularly highlighted, both within learning from local reviews of recent cases and also within multi-agency audits, that professionals have difficulties in building relationships with fathers and male carers when working with families, as often the focus is around mothers - for a variety of reasons.
This theme has been highlighted within the National Panel’s report of The Myth of Invisible Men.
- What we want to achieve
- What we are doing
- Professional curiosity and questions
- Fathers and male carers scaling question
What we want to achieve
The CYSCP would like to promote the following aims to professionals:
- raise awareness of the importance of building relationships with fathers in relation to improving outcomes for children
- encourage practitioners to 'think family' and consider significant others in the home when working with families
- build a repository of resources for professionals to support effective engagement and work with fathers
- raise awareness from a safeguarding perspective with regards to the risks associated with non engagement with fathers and the impact of this on safeguarding assessments and the welfare of children
- celebrate effective working relationships with fathers and share learning
- encourage and understand fathers voices regarding what they would like from practitioners
- ensure fathers feel welcome in our services and feel part of all family assessments
What we are doing
We've created a social media campaign to raise awareness.
The CYSCP launched the 'Let's Hear the Father's Voice' campaign alongside the Humber and North Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership, and the Hull Safeguarding Children Partnership, to help raise awareness regarding the importance of building relationships and connecting with fathers.
We've Created a repository of resources, including a page on the CYSCP website which pulls together useful resources and links for professionals working with fathers and male carers.
We celebrate good practice. The CYSCP are continually looking at how we can as a multi-agency system work better and share best practice amongst our safeguarding workforce.
Examples of how we continue to share best practice include:
- sharing learning from partners within the CYSCP monthly newsletter
- holding themed meetings and held masterclass to share practice amongst the safeguarding workforce
- creating an Engaging with Fathers One Minute Guide
Professional curiosity and questions
You may wonder what you can do to support good practice when building relationships with fathers and
male carers when working with families.
We've created some questions as prompts to support professional curiosity when working with families and considering males in the work that you do.
- What are our barriers in working with fathers and male carers?
- Are we making assumptions about gender roles and working patterns?
- What are we sometimes missing when we don’t engage fathers; what are the gaps we need to know?
- What are the questions we need to prepare and develop before we visit families?
- Are there any particular agencies that have a more positive/negative relationship with fathers and male carers?
- Are we developing our own social stories and narratives which impact on how we work with fathers?
- How does our work with families and network safety plans given fathers a voice?
- How do we provide a service that feels welcoming to men?
- Are we actively trying to break down stereotypes with regard to mum and dad’s roles at home?
- Are we supporting each other to create transparency and ask curious questions?
- Are we ‘intentionally’ talking to fathers about their role within the family dynamic?
Fathers and male carers scaling question
When reflecting on your working practice consider the following scaling question, which may elicit some further thinking.
On a scale of 0 to 10, where would you put yourself on the following scale, and what would you need to see in order to go up 1 scaling point?
A score of 10 would indicate:
- whilst there is still work to do in working with men and male carers, we can see them included more in meetings, hear their voice and are empowering them to be part of progress and change within families
- We are hearing during our multi-agency working that men feel heard and are contributing to safety and network planning
A score of 0 would indicate:
- you believe that whilst we are a group of agencies make some effort to include fathers in our work with children and families, you think that men and male carers may still feel excluded from services
- fathers are not regularly included in meetings and reviews
- we don’t always prioritise work and support with them to help them reflect on their behaviour, or make and sustain change
When considering the fathers and male carers scaling question you should ask:
- are we seeing father’s views throughout a child’s plan and not just ‘in consultation’ at key times?
- are we asking the same questions of fathers and helping them to shoulder responsibility as part of planning?
- are we actively seeking the voice of fathers and male carers?
- are we doing with rather than doing to when offering advice and support?