Band of Brothers

An article in last Sunday’s Independent related David Freud’s convoluted relationship with his very talented, very famous, but distinctly absent father, Lucian.  Freud wants to become a mentor with the Brighton-based Band of Brothers which pairs disaffected young men with local role models.  He’s taking part in a paint-a-thon next month in a bid to raise money for the charity, which uses weekend retreats to create modern ‘rites of passage’ for the young men in an attempt to build up their self-worth.

Freud himself is a father of four but has lost contact with his third daughter, a loss about which Freud says that he’s "recreated the relationship between me and my father with (my daughter).”  His experience is a poignant reminder of the need to find imaginative ways to support the sort of young men that find themselves with a Brighton Brother.  Many of them will either already be, or will become fathers themselves, and could repeat the damaging cycle, as Freud knows all too well.

Should new fathers be getting more help to be able to support during birth and beyond?

This question was debated on Women’s Hour this morning.  Among those taking part were Dean Beaumont from Daddy Natal and Prof Tina Miller from Oxford Brookes.  Dean was up against a presenter, Jane Garvey, who took a particularly scornful approach to his suggestion that many men would welcome, and profitably use, extended paternal leave in order to begin the development of a sound relationship with their new-born.  The fact that midwives are part of the problem because they usually ignore fathers, as well as part the solution, was given an airing, but without a hint of what needs to be done in order to improve matters.  It was a reminder of how far away we still are from a grown-up discussion about the importance of fathers, as well as mothers, in the lives of their children and how services have to change in order to meet their needs.  But at least the programme debated the question.

Early Intervention on the Early Way Out?

The message implicit in an article in Children & Young People Now, the NYA publication, is not encouraging for those of us convinced of the importance of early intervention.  The government has decided to compel local authorities to reveal their early intervention expenditure by publishing a funding profile.  The move is alleged to help identify local spending on such programmes as the early intervention grant is absorbed into wider local government funding from April.  The decision was revealed in an answer to a written parliamentary question by Graham Allen MP, chair of the Early Intervention Foundation just before Christmas by the junior communities minister Brandon Lewis.

But Allen said the decision was a “tiny concession” for changes to the grant, which have widely been viewed as an abandonment of the government's commitment to early intervention.  “The very small concession is the fact that it can be tracked, and we’ll try and figure out where the money is being spent,” said Allen.  But he warned, “Local authorities are under pressure to use the money for mandatory programmes, and now early intervention will be at the back of the queue.

Andrew Webb, vice president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, said the move was designed to shift the responsibility of spending cuts.  Fancy that.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, an article on Tuesday’s C&YPN reported that early intervention funding for councils is to be cut by an additional £49m over the next two years.  It’s useful to to know where the charming Mr Gove’s priorities lie.  It gets worse.  Today, the former children’s minister Tim Loughton MP, accused Mr Gove of running his ministry like the department store in seventies sitcom "Are You Being Served?”  Mr Loughton accused Mr Gove, his old boss, of behaving like Young Mr Grace, the out-of-touch department store owner in the comedy who barely knew the people who worked for him.

Giving evidence to the Commons Education Committee, Mr Loughton painted a devastating picture of the Department for Education (DfE) as inefficient and bureaucratic with an ‘upstairs downstairs mentality’.  The former children’s minister slammed the ‘declining’ priority given to children and families' issues, accusing Mr Gove of ‘complete radio silence’ on the subject.  ‘Most officials have never met the Secretary of State other than when he will troop out a few chosen people for the new year party, Mr Grace-like from Grace Brothers, and tell us we've all done terribly well and then disappear,’ he said.

Dads Matter Too - the DVD

At this month’s conference I met Kim Parker and her two colleagues from Cornwall.  They are also committed to working with young fathers-to-be and I gave her some of the few remaining copes of the DVD.  I’ve just had a wonderful email from her, which I quote with her permission:

"I showed the DVD in the Childcare group that I am teaching and they thought it was great and could not get the song out of their heads. I found it really useful when talking about the importance of making partnerships with parents and especially relationships with fathers.

I have also placed 2 of the DVDs in the Health Promotions resource library where different agencies can borrow resources to support their groups. 

Julian and myself are going to incorporate the DVD in our Dads programme too and a Dads group in Camborne down here have also asked if they can borrow a copy to show the Dads.”

It’s great to have confirmation that, despite being made four years ago, it is still relevant.

Second National Conference For Men and Boys

The theme of the conference was 'building the sector’.  About 200 delegates took part from all over the country and it was good to hear about all the good work that’s going on, particularly in the fatherhood field.

It was also good to see ‘old’ friends and make some new ones.  John will remember Melvyn Davies, whose daughter is now 7.  Was it that long ago!  And the London team will remember Kevin Lowe.  I hadn’t seen him since the TSA’s conference 'back in the day'.  Had to say that because I can’t remember the year.

Course update

Four agencies have now acquired a licence to run the course.  Good news because it means that a slowly-increasing number of young men are being given the support they invariably welcome, and need.

Better services for young fathers

The Fatherhood Institute wants to improve what’s on offer for young fathers and their families.  More details can be found at http://www.fatherhoodinstitute.org/2012/help-us-push-for-better-services-for-young-dads-and-their-families/.  There’s a practitioners’ survey at http://www.smart-survey.co.uk/v.asp?i=59260xtkb.  The survey runs till Friday.  There’s a prize draw (!) and the winning participant from the practitioners’ survey will receive £200 of FI resources.

Second National Conference For Men and Boys

The programme is now available and can be found at:
http://brightonmanplan.wordpress.com/2012/09/28/programme-for-second-national-conference-for-men-and-boys/

Second National Conference for Men and Boys

This will take place on Friday 2 November  at the The Brighthelm Centre, North Road, Brighton, BN1 1YD.  There will be four opportunities for speakers:

The Activists Soapbox is an opportunity for speakers to ‘get on their soapbox’ and let rip about an issue they are most passionate about.

The Sector Showcases are hour-long sessions that will involve several speakers giving a short overview of an aspect of their work and an opportunity to be involved in Q&A and discussion. There are six showcase themes – fatherhood, health, mental health, violence and abuse, sexual health and developing men and boys.

The Best Practice Showcases are an opportunity for speakers to deliver a short solo presentation about their work. There will be no Q&A during these sessions, but speakers will be invited and encouraged to make themselves available for Q&As from delegates throughout the day.

The Top Ten Thinkers section involves speakers relevant to the entire conference and will challenge delegates thinking and/or leave delegates inspired to take action.

More details can be found at http://brightonmanplan.wordpress.com/conference-2012/.

I’ve been asked to take part in one of these sessions so I’ll have an opportunity to bang on in my usual way about the need to, and value of, work with young fathers-to-be.

Early Intervention

In August’s edition of The Psychologist, Ruby Bell, Head of Forensic Psychology at Roseberry Park Hospital, Middlesbrough, quotes Carson McCullers who said that, “the hearts of small children are delicate organs.  A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes.”  Looks like Ms McCullers was an early Early Interventionist.

In the same edition, Jean Gross, England’s Communication Champion in 2008, acknowledges her fascination with "the research on how children’s secure attachment and communication skills develop in the earliest years through warm interaction with caregivers … so that every child will get the best start in life.”  Early Intervention is where it’s at.

Troubled Families … Troubled Society?

In the warm after-glow of Olympic glory it might seem churlish to take issue with Louise Casey’s report.  In her introduction she starts by reminding us that, in December 2010, “the Prime Minister set out that he wanted troubled families’ lives to be turned around by the end of this Parliament” and to fund this work £448 million has been found across government.  One can only applaud a Prime Minister who has such a desire and a government that is prepared to make such a commitment.  But it’s worth looking a little closer at what’s involved.

Forty years ago I started working in a therapeutic community that had previously been a senior approved school.  We found that four to five years of ‘milieu therapy’ enabled the great majority of the community’s young residents to turn their lives around.  The five figure cost for each resident was significantly less than the cost of imprisoning them had the community not existed.  So Mr Cameron might be indulging in a degree of wishful thinking if he thinks that a “troubled family” can manage a similar change in the three years that are left of this Parliament, and at a cost of less than £4000 per family.  But good luck.

Let’s set that aside, and let’s not worry too much whether there are only 120,000 troubled families in need of help.  I want to take a closer look at Ms Casey’s report.  Needless to say this will be from the perspective of someone who has worked for a number of years with young fathers-to-be.

The body of the report contains 16 case studies.  Those of us who have worked with ‘disturbed and disturbing’ young people won’t find anything there to surprise us.  Indeed we were familiar with the same sad litany of experiences forty years ago.  That was at a time when “a short sharp shock” was in vogue.  At least we’ve moved on a bit since then.  But it’s instructive to note that three-quarters of the interviews were with young women only.  Only three were with couples and one with a father.

After the interviews comes an analysis of “what the interviews tell us.”  This appears under fourteen headings.  One of these is “Teenage mothers”.  No discussion about the issues facing young fathers.  They remain invisible.  It’s not that fathers don’t get a look-in.  “The majority of the families described absent biological fathers and fathers taking a very casual approach to parenthood and relationships.  For example, as soon as the relationship between the parents breaks down, the father disappears from the family never to be heard of again … the fathers are rarely around ... The influence of male partners was often negative”.

Research evidence is clear about the importance of fathers in the healthy emotional and social development of their children, not that we should require such evidence to convince us of a self-evident fact.  But I can’t see how the cross-departmental programme being driven forward by Eric Pickles’ Department of Communities & Local Government will have any impact on the fathers of troubled families if they “are rarely around".  Instead the programme begins to look like an attempt at a sticking plaster cure for a problem that has much deeper roots in modern British society.  Of course we’ve always been better at advocating cures, and paying for them – remember those short sharp shocks – rather than engaging in an adult debate about underlying causes and working towards the prevention of problems before they arise.  Last year’s riots cost at least £133 million (The Guardian, 6 September 2011).  How much better to have spent that money on preventative strategies in advance rather than on paying for the aftermath.

You won’t be surprised if I suggest that engaging with young fathers-to-be might be one such preventative strategy.  In a cohort of young men with whom I worked in recent years, two-thirds of the relationships broke down within two years of the birth of their children.  Yet in almost all cases they remained in contact with their partners and had continuing involvement with their children.  Mentoring along the lines of Brighton’s Band of Brothers, whose mentors are all volunteers, is another.   Which reminds me of the Olympics and the Games Making volunteers, the Big Society in action.  240,000 people applied to be Games Makers, twice as many as Ms Casey’s 120,000 troubled families.  The spirit of volunteering is alive and kicking, and this despite the cynicism and anger engendered by banking meltdown and misdemeanours, seven figure ‘compensation’ packages, the bonus culture, and endemic tax-dodging.  Perhaps there’s a message here for policy-makers who not only want to inspire a generation but recognise the need to engage with it too.  That warm after-glow might take longer to dissipate.

The Moral Maze

Should the state intervene in the lives of troubled families?  Centred around Louise Casey’s report, last night’s Radio 4 programme generated plenty of heat.  It was only late in the programme that ‘fatherlessness’ was raised as a specific issue of concern.  If you didn’t hear it, and have 45 minutes to spare, check it out on iPlayer.

Listening To Troubled Families

Here’s the link to Louise Casey’s report.
http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/communities/listeningtroubledfamilies
Now to read, absorb and reflect on what it has to say.

Louise Casey’s report

Ms Casey received a good grilling from John Humphreys this morning and it will be interesting to read her report.  It’s not immediately obvious where to get hold of a copy on the web so I’ve sent off a couple of emails in the hope that I can lay my hands on one.

Effects of paternal rejection

New research from the University of Connecticut (http://psr.sagepub.com/content/16/2/103.full) has revealed that the love of a father is one of the greatest influences on the personality development of a child.  It concluded that a father’s love contributes as much - and sometimes more - to a child’s development than does a mother’s love.  The finding was part of large-scale analysis from more than 500 studies about the power of parental rejection and acceptance in shaping our personalities as children and into adulthood.

"In our half-century of international research, we’ve not found any other class of experience that has as strong and consistent effect on personality and personality development as does the experience of rejection, especially by parents in childhood,"' says Ronald Rohner who co-authored the new study in Personality and Social Psychology Review.

A 13-nation team of psychologists working on the International Father Acceptance Rejection Project has developed at least one explanation for this difference: that children and young adults are likely to pay more attention to whichever parent they perceive to have higher interpersonal power or prestige.  So if a child perceives her father as having higher prestige, he may be more influential in her life than the child’s mother.

One important message from this research is that fatherly love is critical to a person’s development.  "The importance of a father’s love should help motivate many men to become more involved in nurturing child care,” Rohner says.  Additionally, he added, widespread recognition of the influence of fathers on their children’s personality development should help reduce the incidence of 'mother blaming' for trouble children.  "The great emphasis on mothers and mothering in America has led to an inappropriate tendency to blame mothers for children’s behaviour problems and maladjustment when, in fact, fathers are often more implicated than mothers in the development of problems such as these.”

The research underlines the need to address the issues surrounding ‘fatherless’ families.