A Merry Christmas to all our readers!

Here's a selection of Christmas trees which
can be found where Dan, Stuart, Johnny, Will, Den and Mike live. Can you work out whose is whose?


Unlike most competitions there are no prizes for any correct answers.

And here's a very subtle star on top of one of them. If you can get the video to work your life will never be the same.

'Addressing teenage pregnancy through culture and sport'

We had been asked to run a session at a conference last February but it was snowed off. We heard recently that the conference was on again, in Exeter on March 4th in the New Year. Originally Den, Lisa, Brett and Steven were going to talk about their Bronze Arts Awards and raise awareness of the problems about trying to fund their progression onto the next level . But now, as a result of the news in my previous post they'll also be able to talk about their progress through Silver. Jackie has also said she'd be happy to take part. Great stuff!

Christmas has come early!

At the beginning of this week we learnt that Carolyn had been successful in obtaining a grant from Swindon Borough Council for the Silver Arts Award. We have been trying to find a source of funds for several months without success so it was with great excitement, and some relief, that we heard the news. Lisa and I went to see Shahina and Barry at Create Studios in the Wyvern Theatre on Thursday to work out the next steps. It looks as if Den, Steven and Mark will be able to pursue their separate interests in music and lyrics, and Lisa and Brett will be able to develop their photographic skills. One of Lisa's photographs already appears in the current edition of the Arts Council's Silver Arts Award booklet so it's particularly appropriate that she can now try to gain that Award. April is thinking about whether she would like to take part, and I still have to contact JJ, Marcus and Charlotte to see if they are interested.

Jackie won't be able to act as our Arts Award adviser because she is so busy with her PhD work, which she is doing in addition to all her usual projects. But she says she'd love to come and do a one-off workshop and use that to address parts of the award if we plan it out with the adviser in advance. So all we have to do now is to find an Arts Award adviser in Swindon.

One last thing - Steven has given me a photo of himself with Jamie. I've put it with the rest of the updated photos in my post of 16th June.

dad news

heya all just a qwick one lisa and i is have a little girl the bst news in the would
am sorry to here harley hope u get better soon were here markics if u need us m8

'New' dads-to-be on the course

Here's Johnny with Charmaine and Chris working away at the course in his flat in Trowbridge.

Community Arts Training

Jackie showed extracts of the DVD and talked about Dads Matter Too to about 30 artists, educators and community practitioners in Warminster last weekend at the Wiltshire Community Arts Training . Several people came up afterwards to say how much they appreciated seeing the film extracts, to get copies of the DVD and ask about the calendar.  One person even recognised Mike from D of E work they had done together 20 years ago - small world!

More good stuff

Something is in the air -
Anthony has just started a plumbing course in Swindon;
Den has just started a vocational studies course in Swindon;
Lisa has started a part-time job in Trowbridge;
Pat has signed up for a bricklaying course in Trowbridge;
Tash has signed up for a child care course in Trowbridge;
Steven is on a parenting course in Swindon;
Aurora and Gemma are starting the Parents With Prospects course in Trowbridge;
Josh is continuing his college courses in Calne;
Stuart has started on Resolve;
Brett and Marcus, both working, are tackling really difficult situations;
Max and Harvey are both going to nursery school and are now potty-trained!

University research projects

A researcher from Reading University has been working with several U-Too young couples as part of a year-long investigation into the lives of young parents in rural areas. Phoebe is a young mother herself so is well aware of the pressures that come with parenthood. Here she is with Tash, Pat and Harley in Melksham after a three hour visit to Trowbridge College where Tash and Pat are now both enrolled on courses - but not before some major hassles involving complications around benefits and travel costs.

Phoebe is also seeing Dan and Zuzu in Salisbury, Damian and Gemma in Westbury, Will and Aurora in Trowbridge, Stuart and Leia in Melksham, and Josh and Terri in Calne. We are looking forward to seeing the results of her research in due course.

Another researcher, based at King's College, London but working for the Government Office South West, has interviewed Chris in Calne as part of her study about lifestyles and young fatherhood.

Healthy Eating!

Last night Anthony was preparing his gourmet version of spag bol. Here he is with his FRESH ingredients, including mince, chopped onions and green pepper. It's always a bit of a trial for me to go round to see him and Chelsey in the evening, as I don't get home to eat till after I've seen them, because there are usually mouth-watering smells wafting out of their kitchen.

CSJ DVD

I've just been sent some copies of these so I'll be giving one to Den and Will, who both appeared in the film, and one to Marcus who went to the award ceremony. If anyone else is interested in a copy, let me know.

New courses

A number of courses for young mums-to-be and follow-on parenting skills courses are about to start:

YMTB SALISBURY 15 September to December at Salisbury Foyer
SWINDON 15 September to December at Drove Children's Centre
TROWBRIDGE 14 September to December at Bridge House

Parenting Skills SALISBURY 9 September to March at Bemerton Heath
SWINDON 28 September to March at Drove Children's Centre
TROWBRIDGE 24 September to March at Bellefield Children's Centre

For further details contact Carolyn on 01380 850547 or Zoe on 07989 929193

Partners of the young women on the YMTB courses in Salisbury and Trowbridge may like to do their own course in preparation for fatherhood. If so, please contact Mike on 07875 639992.

NCLP Internal Verifier report

Once again U-Too was given a really positive report for their Young Mums To Be and Parents With Prospects courses. Comments include:

• This centre is providing excellent support for the candidates.
  
• It is clear to see all tutors are dedicated to their work.
• The candidates' portfolios are of a consistently high standard.
• Links with external agencies in Salisbury are excellent.
• This centre has excellent achievement results and shows best practice in assessment.

So thanks once again to our team of tutors, Alison, Jayne, Lesley, Sue, for maintaining such high standards, to Zoe for her support and excellent outreach work, and to Carolyn for making sure the show stays on the road.

Baby Massage Course takes place

Three couples came to the course at Studley Green Children's Centre in Trowbridge. Marcus, JJ and Nickolas came by train from Swindon, via Bath Spa. Anthony, Chelsey and Laila came from Calne, and Will, Aurora and Connor came from Trowbridge. Three other couples hoped to attend but various bits of life got in the way. Chelsey said she and Anthony "loved the baby massage. Laila was really relaxed all day and was as good as gold!" Aurora came despite having an unpleasant cold and all three couples picked up some useful techniques to use with their children. Thanks go to Niall for setting up the course and to Catherine for running it.

Chelsey massages Laila's legs and tummy watched by an attentive Anthony.

Mark does the same with Nickolas, watched by Catherine and JJ

Baby Massage Course

This is going to take place at Studley Green Children's Centre in Trowbridge from 10am to 4pm on Saturday 15th August. Niall Howard, who works there, has organised it for us. Lunch is being provided and we'll pay fares. All you need to do is to get yourselves there! It's a great opportunity to meet 'old' friends from the DVD, as well as 'new' U-Too dads.

Lijit - who's visiting us?

Here's a new 'wigit' called 'lijit' (scroll down the page on the left) that should show us where visitors to the blog come from, what's most interesting to people, and what else is interesting on the websites we've mentioned in 'useful links' ... Or you can just click 'surprise me' and it opens a surprise page from any of our linked sites. It could search other sites, flickr, things like that.. let me know if there's something i should add.
John suggested the original counter back in the early days of the blog, and that's been a great way to see the impact.
I hope this one might be interesting too...

Puzzle of the day

Which U-Too dad says "I wear the trousers in our relationship ... but my girlfriend picks which ones I wear."

U Too Dads

Watch the CSJ short film shown in London (including a couple of extracts from the Dads Matter Too DVD)

We won!!

Jackie's beaten me to it! U-Too Dads have done it again - so congratulations to everyone who has made this possible - particularly to those of you who insisted on making Dads Matter Too, to all eleven of you who took part, and to Jackie who filmed us and put it together so well.

The Awards evening was even more nerve wracking than we anticipated because we were the very last group to be announced as Award winners. Marcus gave a short, but memorable, speech outlining the impact that he feels that U-Too has had on his life. A considerable number of people came up to him afterwards to say how moved they had been by what he said.


1 Are we going to get an Award? 2 Tamsin Greig hands it over ... 3 Marcus telling 'em like it is

4 Mike trying to do the same ... 5 Later with Simon and Tamsin ... 6 Max is proud of his dad

Steven and Chris in Swindon, and Chris in Calne with the trophy

Karl hard at work

Well Done!!

Well done! Fantastic news from the CSJ awards:

'This year’s award attracted nearly 400 nominations from across the country, with 13 projects shortlisted by a panel of independent judges.

The seven winners, announced on the night were: Nelson Trust, Working Rite, Blue Sky, Chance UK, Young Disciples, U Too, and SOS Gangs Project at the St Giles Trust.'

http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/default.asp?pageRef=37

and photos at:

http://www.johncairnsphotography.co.uk/CSJ_Awards_09/large-46.html

blog visitors

Thought it's time for an update on the blog's visitors...
according to google analytics, which I registered the blog with a couple of months after it was started, and which is quite a strict 'countng' system:
1 122 different individual people have visited the blog. The average time spent on the blog is 2:39 mins. and the average is 2.02 page views - not bad considering there's upto 20 posts on each page. People from 53 differnt countries have come onto the blog!
The longest active visit recorded was someone in Jan08 who spent over 32 minutes on the blog. Just this month alone (June 09) 138 individual people have visited the blog, looking at 306 pages, and spending over 2 minutes on average.

How everyone looks now

It's about time we posted some up-to-date photos of everyone so you can see how gorgeous you all are.
1 2 3
1 Mark and the long-suffering Nickolas
2 Lisa and Den with a very happy Max
3 Chris with a less-than-cheerful McKenzie
4 5 6
4 Brett and April with Kailum and Harvey
5 Pat (after a hard day's work!) with Tash and Harvey
6 Congratulations to Josh and Terri on the arrival of Alexia
7 8 9
7 Dan, Zuzu and Henley-Jai
8 Tash and Lee with Leo sleeping off his feed
9 Anthony and Chelsey with Leila
101112
10 Marcus and Charlotte with Harley
11 Ben and Georgia with Joshua James
12 Aurora and Will with Connor, another new arrival
13
13 At home with Stuart, Leia and Jess

14 And last, and at last, Steven with Jamie

Young Mums To Be

Although this blog is focussed on U-Too's work with young dads-to-be, this work would not have started without the foundation of our work with young mums-to-be. The quality of this has always been of a very high standard and this is reflected in a recent External Verifier's report on behalf of the NCFE:

"... learners ... continue to praise and value the support they receive from U-Too and the opportunities now open to them. U-Too has, over the years, developed very effective teaching and additional assessment resources and demonstrated their commitment to their continuing professional development and best practice."

So this an opportunity to acknowledge the work of Carolyn and Gail over the last six years, as well as that of our current team of tutors, Alison, Jayne, Lesley, Sue and Zoe.

Centre for Social Justice filming

Our CSJ contact, Juliette, arranged for a cameraman to visit us again so Murray, and his sidekick, Toby, came to Wiltshire on Tuesday. The idea was to put together a 'story' about U-Too that will be shown at the Awards Ceremony on 1st July. So here's Murray at Bridge House in Trowbridge making life interesting for members of the Young Mums To Be course, Rebekah, Roxanne and Lynda, together with tutor Jayne.


When that ordeal was over Murray and Toby went over to the Rachel Fowler Centre in Melksham so that they could film Will and Aurora, who were interviewed by Juliette. This was a bit special because both Aurora and Juliette are 'expecting', Aurora next week and Juliette in 5 weeks' time, so they had plenty to talk about.



Having finished filming on Tuesday, Murray and Toby were back again yesterday to film Den and Lisa at their place in Swindon. This proved a bit of a challenge as Max had decided views about his willingness to be an actor. All this effort was for a 90 second (very) short and I'd like to thank all the interviewees and Jayne for their patience in dealing with Murray's needs.

Primary Care '09

I was asked to speak to a scarily large number of people, mainly midwives, at this conference at the NEC yesterday. I asked Jackie to put together a short DVD using clips from Dads Matter Too. So the audience of 800 (!!) saw Chris, Karl, Brett, Marcus and Lisa talking about the experiences they'd had at the hands of the maternity services. As this was mainly about how they felt excluded, this was challenging material for the audience, but several people came up to me afterwards to say how much they'd appreciated the presentation.

Centre for Social Justice

Juliette left three invitations for us to attend the Awards evening in London on 1st July. The CSJ expect the boss to attend, so that's Carolyn; a worker, that's me; and a dad. Which is a bit of a problem. How to decide who should go? But having talked it over with Den, Mark, Brett, Steven, Chris and Chris, everyone agreed that Marcus should have first option because he was unable to attend the Prince's Trust Celebrate Success evening back in November. He's had to check that he can get time off work and told me yesterday that he can. So that's the team that will be going.

It would be fantastic if we turned out to be one of the Award winners as we would use the money to rewrite the young dads-to-be course with the help of an accrediting body like ASDAN. This would mean that organisations using it might have a better chance of drawing down funds to run it. But looking at the other shortlisted groups on the CSJ website, we're up against strong opposition so we must be realistic about our chances of winning. Being on the shortlist itself is a great achievement.

Fatherhood Institute

A major case study of U-Too has been written up and can be found at

http://www.fatherhoodinstitute.org/index.php?id=13&cID=910

More good news

U-Too is on a short list of 13 organisations out of 335 that applied for an award from the Centre for Social Justice. This feels like a major achievement and we can all feel really proud. Juliette Ash from the CSJ came to Swindon last week to check us out. She met several of the young mums-to-be who had just completed their YMTB course in Swindon, together with Lesley Hogg, their tutor. Brett and April came into the Link Centre office, together with Harvey and Kailum, and then Mike took Juliette off to see Den, Lisa and Max over at Pembroke Park. The young parents talked about their experience of U-Too's courses and were photographed and filmed by John, who came with Juliette. Three of us have been invited the Awards ceremony in London on 1st July, when the 6 winners of the 2009 Awards will be announced. Details of the other short-listed organisations can be found at:

http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/default.asp?pageRef=296

London Conference

The conference took place at the Voluntary Sector Resource Centre in Holloway, London last Wednesday. Its title was Supporting Young Fathers: more promising practice and over 80 people attended. I gave a quick run through about U-Too and its development and then we ran a couple of workshops. We split ourselves into three sets of presenters: Lee and Pat, Mark and Lisa, and myself. We split the workshop participants into three, and each spent 20 minutes with each group during the hour-long workshop. One of the participants has since emailed me and asked me to "Please pass on my regards to the team, they were excellent in providing an insight into the life of a young father and how they have/are benefiting from the work that you do."

Lee was supposed to represent young fathers-to-be but Tash gave birth to Leo three weeks early!

Jeremy Davies from the Fatherhood Institute was at the conference and introduced the FI's resource pack, Invisible Fathers: Working with young dads. Not only does it contain our DVD but also lots of photos of U-Too dads with their children. We're a bit chuffed. He has given us a complimentary copy but I'm hoping to persuade him to let us have enough copies to give to each of the dads whose photos appear in the pack.

Two new arrivals

Congratulations to Anthony and Chelsey on the birth of Leila and to Paddy and Tash on the birth of Harley. Both mothers and babies are doing well, and both fathers look pretty good to!

More from the Arts

There's more in the arts about Dads Matter Too this month.

Jackie was interviewed as a case study for ENYAN's e-newsletter and website this month.
So of course Dads Matter Too was one of the 'interesting projects' to talk about!

ENYAN is the 'English National Youth Arts Network' and the site has lots of useful info on youth arts projects, events & advice. You have to login to access the site - but it's free to use.

https://www.enyan.co.uk/article/show/7054

London Conference

Because there's been a good take-up of places at the conference, the TSA has asked us to run a workshop as well as give a presentation. Mark has agreed to join the team so there'll now be 5 of us travelling up to London a fortnight tomorrow. Just got to find a place to stay!

London Conference

The Trust for the Study of Adolescence is running a conference on 8th April: Supporting Young Fathers - More Promising Practice. We're running one of the sessions. This will involve a quick run through of U-Too's work and the way in which it supports young fathers; the benefits to them, their partners and children; and a look at one section of Dads Matter Too. Lee, Patrick and Lisa will help me with the presentation. More details can be found on the TSA website.

Dads Matter Too in the arts

Dads Matter Too was selected as one of 7 community arts projects presented to the Wiltshire Community Arts Network tonight. In only 5 minutes Jackie had a lot to say... just time to wave the calendar and DVD at everyone!
Afterwards another artist/presenter came up and said she'd heard about Dads Matter Too on the national news a while back, and immediately googled the blog as she thought it was such a great project! Small world!
She also said she thought Dads support/courses like U-Too's dads-to-be should be available through every GP - good idea!
And very nice to hear it's all going on out there...

Three new links - there's something for everyone here!

Details about the new Fatherhood Institute Working With Young Fathers Resource Pack can be found at:
http://www.fatherhoodinstitute.org/index.php?id=13&cID=871
The pack will be available next month and we're particularly proud that our DVD is included in it. This will explain Jackie's 2000 DVDs post last week.

The second link can be found on the Community Care website at:
http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2009/02/23/110756/supporting-young-fathers.html
Here you'll find that I succumbed to the urge to set down what passes for the wisdom I've accumulated during my work with young fathers-to-be.

And finally, but by no means least, JJ has asked me to put her Bebo link on the blog so that people can see it and add to it. So here it is:
http://www.bebo.com/dadsmatter2

Please take a look at whichever one takes your fancy, or all three if you have the time.

2000 DVDs

Here's the first of a new order of 2000 DVDs...

BBC News at Ten

Yesterday afternoon, in the wake of the media furore over the 13 year old father, we were asked by the BBC to put up a young dad for a News at Ten interview. The problem with going along with this sort of request is that you have no control over the story's angle. The truth is that many young parents find life difficult, and for a variety of reasons. Given the nature of some of these, News at Ten would not be the right arena to air these. Chris and I discussed what might be involved and he felt he could handle the interview.

Young Fathers Working Group

Den and Mark went to the Connexions office in Theatre Square, Swindon, yesterday to meet with Swindon's Strategic Manager for Teenage Pregnancy and one of her Children's Centre colleagues. They were there to help the Borough establish a better understanding of a young father's experience in Swindon - the best bits, what's been hard, what's helped most, what could have been more helpful. They were both very open and honest about their experiences and gave the professionals a real insight into some of the very real difficulties they face.

Teenage pregnancy and the cultural sector

This week's snow brings joy to some, sadness to others. We feel both. Yesterday Brett and April were out building a snowman with Harvey, Den and Lisa were doing the same with Max. Today Brett and Lisa should have been going down to Bridgwater with Steven and Marcus to help me run a session at a seminar jointly organised by the Government Office South West and Culture South West. Brett and Marcus had both arranged to be off from work today but instead of talking about their experiences making the film and getting their Bronze Arts Awards, they are probably building more snowmen. Art of a different kind. We had obtained 100 copies of Swindon's Artsmad magazines to distribute to seminar participants, complete with Steven's story and Lisa's photograph of Marcus at Tate Modern. So if anyone would like a copy let me know!

BBC 1 Politics Show

Lee was the only dad among a panel of mums and mums-to-be. Brave man. The panel was put together to discuss Government plans to give all pregnant women a grant of £190 and to discuss the plans of the other major political parties to support families. Both Lee and Tash contributed to the discussion but Lee was disappointed not to be able to talk about support for young dads-to-be.

Early Years

Not all of us know that the Department for Children, Schools & Families publishes a magazine called Early Years. We do now because Chris has been interviewed for a piece about young fathers. We'll post more information when the article is published.

BBC 1 Politics Show

Tash and Lee from Warminster spent Wednesday morning in a TV studio in Bristol. U-Too was asked if any of 'our' young mums-to-be would be prepared to be part of a panel which would discuss Government plans for supporting expectant mums. Tash agreed and she and Lee were taxied over to Bristol and back. The programme goes out at midday on Sunday. Lee was frustrated that he couldn't say anything about young dads-to-be so he says he'll try to interest the programme's producer in a new programme!

Another milestone!

We've now sent out 300 copies of the DVD to nearly 150 different organisations. Great stuff, you guys!

Chris and Laura contacted the Gazette & Herald just before Christmas to see if the newspaper would be interested in a story about them and the Community Impact Award. And here's the result - with Cameron admiring the trophy but Saskia more interested in the photographer. The following week the newspaper published a letter from a reader expressing her dismay that the paper "gave such prominence to the, apparently, unmarried teenagers who ... decided to have a child and then another."

The letter continued in a similar vein and serves as a reminder of the strong feelings about teenage pregnancy held by, not only the reader, but probably by many more people as well. It also serves as a reminder that, if you stick your head above the parapet, someone might try to whack it. I reckon the risk is worth it. So, well done Chris.