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!