Nursery World - Positive Relationships: Parents

The idea of a dads' group can be more appealing to early years practitioners than to the fathers themselves. Katy Morton looks at their future and what makes a successful scheme.

Supporting Families in the Foundation Years, just published, sets out the Government's commitment to helping families and improving the life chances of under-fives. Involving parents in their children's learning is viewed as crucial, so does this mean a bigger future for sessions specially for fathers in early years settings?

Dads' groups have flourished in recent years. While they now take many forms, the most popular tend to focus on sports, reading and arts and crafts. Often settings choose to set up groups as a way for fathers to spend quality time with their children. This was the thinking behind West Yorkshire's Bateley Sure Start's Saturdads group, which was started in response to the fact that most local toddler groups were for women.

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