Men and Boys Conference

It’s been a while since my last post, mainly because I wanted the news about our course to be seen as soon as visitors opened our link. But stuff HAS been happening. A couple of agencies have already acquired the licence to use the course and others are interested. And at the beginning of November Carolyn and I went to the first Men and Boys Conference in Brighton. We put some U-Too news on display boards, gave a talk about the course and met old friends, including Melvyn Davies, who John will remember, and Rob Williams from the Fatherhood Institute, who Den has met.

Rob has arranged for news about the course to appear in The Fatherhood Institute’s next email and I’m helping to put together a list of organisations working with fathers. The idea is that eventually a network of such organisations will be created to lobby for more resources for work with men and boys, and for fathers in particular.

"Preparation for Fatherhood" course

Carolyn and I met with Chris Latham this morning. Chris is Development Manager for the Open College Network's south-western region (OCNSWR). We worked out what we need to do next to try to get the course accredited. The following discussion of the issues involved appears on page 4 of the CSJ's response to Frank Field's report.

Coming alongside young fathers-to-be

There are few programmes to help young fathers-to-be, although Graham Allen made the point that ‘Health and early years services need to do more to ensure that expectant mother and fathers are offered high-quality community-based preparation for parenthood that includes learning about the needs of babies during pregnancy and early life and how to make the successful transition to parenthood.’

U-Too, a 2010 CSJ poverty-fighting Award winner runs such programmes to help young fathers-to-be. It used the Award money to fund a rewrite of their course so that it could gain accreditation and be made available to other agencies that would then be eligible for funding. Although they completed the rewrite using National Open College Network’s Progression Units, the current restructuring of acceptable qualifications might mean that the Units used are no longer available. If this is the case, they will fail to receive accreditation. Smaller organisations who are trying to establish the validity of a programme and have designed it according to recognised tenets, may still struggle to obtain the necessary accreditation for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with programme effectiveness.

The complete CSJ response can be found at:

http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/client/downloads/2011182_CSJresponse_childpovertyconsultation.pdf

Young dads-to-be course

Carolyn and I met with Valerie Hall on Monday. Valerie is a Quality Reviewer for the National Open College Network (NOCN). Valerie confirmed that the course we've rewritten is at the upper end of the requirements for a Level 1 Award, which is good news. Even better is that she thought it's user friendly, not patronising, and gives participants ownership of their own learning. Best of all, Den and Mark feel quite envious of anyone who does the new course because they both wish they could have done it instead of our original version!

But there's a problem. The course is linked to five NOCN progression units which we now learn may not be available after the end of July. So we're going to see if we can make it a stand-alone qualification. We're going to meet with Chris Latham, our regional NOCN Development Manager, in early March to see what can be worked out. Watch this space!

Silver Stars

Jenny, Lisa Den and Steven were presented with their Silver Arts Award certificates by the Mayor of Swindon, Cllr Rex Barnett, at last Tuesday's Presentation Evening at The Platform. This represents a considerable achievement for all four, but especially for Den and Lisa, both of whom had left school with no GCSEs. So it's a reminder that, given the right circumstances and support, young people from their background can achieve remarkable success.

Silver Arts Award

Steven, Den, Lisa and Jenny will be presented with their Silver Arts Awards on Thursday next week at The Platform in Swindon. Steven's story appears on the Arts Award website at:

http://www.artsaward.org.uk/site/?id=2156&action=preview&backTo=index

Early Intervention: The Next Steps

Graham Allen's review was published this week. It can be found at:

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/early-intervention-next-steps.pdf

We made our own contribution to it and it was good to see the following sentence on page 48

"Health and early years services need to do more to ensure that expectant mothers and fathers are offered high-quality community-based preparation for parenthood that includes learning about the needs of babies during pregnancy and early life and how to make the successful transition to parenthood."

At last there is recognition that expectant fathers, as well as expectant mothers, should be offered some means of preparation for fatherhood. Perhaps our new course can become part of that provision. But the fact that the word 'father' appeared nearly EIGHT times less frequently than the word 'mother' suggests that policy makers still have some way to go.

A big day for dads

It's all happening today. An article appeared in The Times this morning. Entitled "The reality of being a teenage dad" by Elizabeth McFarlane, it has an almost accurate quote of mine. You can find the article at http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/life/relationships/article2875431.ece but to read it you'll have to subscribe for £1, then unsubscribe!

Then this evening Panorama broadcast its programme, "Where's Dad?", about fathers who lose contact with their children.

And finally I've just finished writing the Tutor Pack to go along with Dads Matter Too, the rewrite of our original dads' course. All we have to do now is to get it checked by our friends at the National Open College Network to see that it's at the right standard for Level 1 accreditation. When that's done we'll see if we can get it published. Jackie has agreed to produce an A4 copy of the DVD cover to use as the front cover for the course. Thanks Jackie!

Dads Matter Too

At last. I've finished the course rewrite. I'll be taking it round to check out what people think about it. If any of you read this, put it out on Facebook cos I know more of you use that than the blog. Ta!