FYFF webinar series
In 2023, the Following Young Fathers Further team is running a monthly webinar series.
The main aims of the webinar series are too:
•Mark the final funded year of the Following Young Fathers Further study (2020-24),
• Disseminate some of the findings and advances made in the study so far,
• Reflect on the current state of debate in key areas relevant to young fatherhood,
• Bring together researchers, practitioners and policy makers with an interest in young fatherhood, and
• Establish a network around young fatherhood and family research.
Webinar recordings
Recordings of the webinars were created if you were unable to attend on the day.
January 2023
The current state of debate about young parenthood: In the launch of the 2023 FYFF webinar series, Professor Anna Tarrant provides a brief commentary of current research about young parenthood. Drs Laura Way and Linzi Ladlow also offer some insights about the findings from the Following Young Fathers Further study to date.
February 2023
Launching the Think Dad! father-inclusive practice toolkit: Attended by over 160+ professionals, academics and funders across the UK, this was our most popular webinar to date. With the North East Young Dads and Lads, we launched a brand new father-inclusive practice toolkit with fantastic interactive elements that foreground the voices and views of young dads.
Download mp4March 2023
Unfortunately, due to an incident of Zoom bombing we are unable to provide a recording of this webinar. Joined by Dr Aniela Wenham and Judith Cork (Romsey Mill, Cambridge), this webinar aimed to provide a space to learn more about more recent research and practice with young mothers.
April 2023
Championing Father-Inclusive Practice with Marginalised Young Fathers: With presentations from Elliot Wright-Clarke from Future Men (London) and Greg Borthwick from Dads Rock (Edinburgh), this webinar is an opportunity to learn about effective examples of good practice with young fathers across the UK.
Download mp4May 2024
Fathers and Mental Health: In this webinar we were joined by Scott Mair of Fatherhood Network Scotland and Professors Paul Hodkinson and Ranjana Das. Both presentations focus on recent research and practice in relation to fathers and their mental health.
June 2024
From our partners and young dads
“[Speaking about support of young fathers] We’ve done a lot of kind of advocation and representing them, a lot of the time there’s involvement with statutory services. They don’t have the care of the young person, the care’s provided by the state or the mother, so we’ve attended lots of meetings with the young person to offer additional support and facilitated contact where necessary and offered just general emotional wellbeing, support, improving robustness and resilience, encouraging them to have as amicable relationship as possible.”
“And I suppose it goes back to what we were saying before about behaviours, maybe the education side of stuff and the fact that men aren’t involved in those early conversations, you know, whether it is, I know they’re invited to come along to bumps to babies but I don’t know whether we go into the detail around some of that brain development side of stuff and things like that. Maybe that is the thing that really would change things. You know, if you were given all of that information about what happens to a child as they grow, in a scientific way, as easy to understand as possible, could be the thing that impacted on behaviour in the home.”
“I think both a mother and father combined, it’s communicating and both being on the same page of what’s best for your child or children, and for both, it’s just being there 100% for them and not, like, putting yourself first, it’s, you know, putting the child’s interests first... ”
“We need to be including, we need to not [just] be focusing on mum and child […] That’s a great focus but dad … dad’s not invisible, dad needs to be in the picture as well because there’s research that shows you the effect it has on children and families as a whole when dad isn’t in the picture, so services need to be changing the way in which they work so it’s more inclusive.”
“Cause I think a lot of the time, some of young people who end up having children have been through the care system or support systems and they can feel quite judged or labelled by organisations and it’s breaking the cycle and breaking them out of that to feel empowered to be able to take stuff back, that’s the real interest to me. So, it’s about getting support right, as in being there and giving advice and guidance and all them things that we can do, but also making sure that we are doing with people as opposed to people.”
“One of the most successful projects we ever did was an informal dads’ group, and it used to be on Saturdays […] they did what they wanted, they used to do things like breakfast, and they would have breakfast together and talk about dad stuff and where they were taking their kids. And that group was always really well attended because there was never an agenda. They were never judged. They were just there together.”
“...the whole stay at home dad thing is not something to be ashamed of, you know, if you’re a dad and you wanna take your daughter out for the day, or you wanna take your kid out for the day on your own, well why is that frowned upon, why can’t you take your child out for the day ”
“Oh…patience…compassion…tolerance, a whole boatload a’ that! Honestly, I like a whole lot of life. Sacrifice…compromise, yeah I think, yeah I think they, they would be the, the big, the five, I feel, I think that was five, they would be the main. ”
“We’re currently in touch with social services for two [dads] because they don’t understand why they can’t see their children because they haven’t been informed by social services, their partner. So there’s a massive communication breakdown with those young men, so that’s the main focus of what we’re dealing with at the minute.”
Partners
