Age: 32
Role: Fathers' engagement worker
Qualifications: NVQ 3 Working with Children and Young People My role is varied and involves working in both the children's centre and the community. Foxhollies Children's Centre is based in Acocks Green, Birmingham, and run by Barnardo's children's charity, with funding from the local authority. I work closely with other professionals to offer advice, support and information to fathers and male carers on a range of issues. The main part of my role is to encourage active involvement in their children's care. I also co-facilitate baby signing workshops for new and expectant parents and am involved in developing a group for parents of children with additional needs.
The very nature of my work means that I don't do a 9-5, Monday to Friday job, and part of the work involves Saturday groups.
9am - First job of the day is to set up the rooms with all the equipment for our Saturday consultation. I collect the children's centre registration forms and registers for the arrival of dads and male carers. I then make a start on the breakfast - this is something that our families have requested and it makes a good engagement tool.
10.00am - The dads start to arrive with their children and register at reception. The consultation exercises start with a series of posters around the room with various suggestions as to the way the group will run. The dads and children put stickers on the activities they would like. This is a tool to enable dads who have literacy needs or EAL to engage fully in our consultation process.
10.15am - Breakfast time! A good chance for dads and children to bond over a meal and network with other people. We will be joined by a family support team for breakfast and this is an opportunity for us to explain the work of the centre.
10.45pm - Activities - rocket making and picture frames. Dads and children work together to make and use things that they can take away, and it also gives them ideas for play within the home. The picture frames will feature a photo of the father and child taken at the group as a keepsake of their time together.
11.45pm - Time for feedback and consultation with the group on the next session and other ways that they would like to be involved with the centre. We have an eco-garden which provides a valuable opportunity for being outdoors and growing fruit and vegetables.
12.15pm - The group all join in with tidying the rooms and then I give out the goody bags which contain fathers' information, ideas for activities with their child at home and toiletries as a gift to take home.
12.30 - After the group I take the chance to catch up with one of our dads who I am working with in an outreach capacity. He is a lone parent and was referred to our family support team. He has now been part of the centre for a year and is doing really well, so I continue to support him and his child as he needs me.
1.30pm - After grabbing some lunch it's time to catch up with the admin. We record all of our groups electronically and have an outcomes monitoring system that links to the Every Child Matters outcomes and enables me to see how effective the group is.
3.30pm - I look at my diary for Monday and take any resources I am going to need for my community group to the car. Early finish today, as it's the weekend. Off home to see my own daughter.
What it takes
The engagement of fathers is increasingly recognised as a vital part of practice in ensuring positive outcomes for all children.
Therefore, a worker given this specialist task is necessary for developing consistency and co-ordination with other areas of work in the provision of children's centres.
Fathers can feel less able to access child and family programmes. The role of fathers' engagement worker requires a great deal of sensitivity to the specific and varied needs of fathers within this context - including single parenting, estrangement, cultural contexts, and other factors such as stress, work/life balance, ill-health and unemployment.
Ideally, the worker should be able to draw on their own parenting experiences, to have completed CCLD training to at least a level three, and to understand the broad spectrum of parent and father issues in relation to outcomes for children.
The skills, knowledge and attitudes necessary for good practice in this role are varied and require a sensitive and intuitive approach. The ability to build relationships, and put people at their ease, especially within a group, to actively listen to and interpret people's communications, behaviour, and situations, without judgement and bias, will facilitate a good grounding in this work.
Effective group and activity planning are critical to helping fathers and carers feel able to participate, as well as the ability to anticipate when to take a one-to-one approach as necessary.
Opportunities for other positions beyond this role might include wider work with families, youth work, play therapy, advocacy and even specialist work with fathers-to-be, or those in prison. These would require some additional training, and in some cases qualifications that build greater professional knowledge.
- Tina Jefferies, managing director of training provider The Red Space Company, www.redspace company.com
