Good for The Guardian

Today’s edition carries two great articles. On p36 “Boys don’t suddenly become men at 18” describes the work of A Band of Brothers, a Brighton-based mentoring project which links older local men with disaffected young men, helping them in the transition to manhood. If this sort of programme could be rolled out nationwide, it might help ameliorate some of the issues faced by the 500,000 families we’re suddenly reading about.

Two pages further on there’s “Birth of a new era for fathers” (let’s hope). A full page article outlines the outcome of a roundtable discussion on 14th March involving 16 professionals from a variety of backgrounds. At least two of the participants also took in an earlier roundtable discussion at Portcullis House on 6th February, helping to "formulate the Labour Party’s position on fathers.”

And if A Band of Brothers can mentor disaffected young men, then it’s not too great a leap of imagination to suggest that disadvantaged young fathers-to-be could be profitably mentored in a similar way on their journey towards fatherhood.