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Access our findings

We share findings from the research in lots of different formats. Our aim is to reach a diverse audience to promote more positive visions of young fatherhood.

Via this page you can access our findings and learn more about our work with young fathers and the multi-agency professionals who champion them.

Our findings are reported in a variety of formats to enable access for all. These include:

Books and book chapters

Featured book

COVID-19 Collaborations

Researching Poverty and Low-Income Family Life during the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic affected everyone – but, for some, existing social inequalities were exacerbated, and this created a vital need for research. This includes young fathers and the professionals who support them.

This book synthesises the challenges of researching during COVID-19 to improve future policy and practice.

You can view the book open access!

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Featured book

Fathering and Poverty

Anna Tarrant’s revealing research explores 

Drawing on pioneering multigenerational research, Fathering and Poverty considers the dynamics of men’s caring responsibilities in low-income families’ lives. Illuminating aspects of care within economic hardship that often go unseen, it deepens our understanding of masculinities and family life and the policies and practices that support or undermine men’s participation.

Available for purchase here!

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Featured book

Men and Welfare

This book explores the complex, evolving relationships between men, masculinities, and social welfare in contemporary context.

The collection constitutes an up-to-date account of the gendered and social implications of policy and practice change for men, and their inherent contradictions and complexities, tracing both stability and change over the past 25 years.

Available for purchase here.

Watch the 2023 book launch and hear from some of our expert authors.

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Featured book

The Dynamics of Young Fatherhood

Understanding the Parenting Journeys and Support Needs of Young Fathers

Around 1 in 10 children born in the UK are fathered by men under the age of 25. These men are often from socially disadvantaged areas and frequently overlooked in both research and practice settings. Using findings from a major Economic and Social Research Council study, supplemented with additional data, the authors focus on the transitions of the young men into early parenthood and their unfolding lives thereafter.

As negative popular and media discourse around young fathers begins to shift, policy makers, practitioners, researchers and students will find future policy and practice directions designed to nurture the potential of these young men and their children.

You can purchase a copy of the book on the Policy Press website.

“One of the most important books on adolescent and young adult fathers ever published. Moving interviews document how young fatherhood is shaped by personal, familial, institutional and societal influences, illuminating factors that facilitate or impede their efforts to be engaged, caring parents and the implications for medical and social services and public policy.” Mark S. Kiselica, Penn State Harrisburg

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Featured book chapter

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on young fathers and the services that support them

This chapter explores the diverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on young fathers and the services that engage them. The qualitative longitudinal design of the study supported exploration of the complexities and dynamics of young fatherhood and their support needs at a time of major economic, social, and policy shifts during the pandemic. Also considered are the ways support services adapted their offers to sustain care for young men.

You can read the chapter open access.

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Peer reviewed Journal Articles

Featured journal article

“Oh sorry, I’ve muted you!”

Issues of connection and connectivity in qualitative (longitudinal) research with young fathers and family support professionals

This article considers how the unanticipated use of remote qualitative methods during the pandemic impacted processes of research connection and connectivity in qualitative (longitudinal) research. First, we consider questions of connection when seeking to (re)establish and retain connections with project stakeholders and marginalised participants through the pivot to remote methods. Second, we reflect on how processes of maintaining participation and interaction were impacted by practical and technological issues associated with the digitally mediated forms of connectivity available.

Available open access!

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Featured journal article

Co-creating with young fathers: Producing Community-Informed Training Videos to Foster more Inclusive Support Environments

Learn about the Diverse Dads study where we co-created films led by young dads as peer researchers who sought to explore how to better support minoritised young dads.

Available open access!

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Featured journal article

DadZine!: Zine making with young fathers as a participatory and DIY approach to research

This article considers how zine making might be understood as a participatory and DIY approach to research through a focus on zine making workshops with young fathers. Drawing upon Fletcher's conceptualisation of ‘zine ethos’, zines’ DIY ethic, their democratic and participatory ideal and their transformative potential will each be considered reflexively, highlighting some of the ways these might be enacted through zine making in the context of research but also potentially constrained. This article extends existing empirical work concerning zines in the context of research and offers some fresh reflections on their value as a participatory and DIY approach to research.

Featured journal article

Increasing father engagement among minoritised fathers through proactive service support and outreach: insights from a participatory pilot study

Based on analyses of multi-perspective data generated from a small participatory and exploratory pilot study called Diverse Dads, this article considers how service engagement with minoritised fathers might be addressed in contexts of family and youth support. Semi-structured qualitative interviews and focus groups, complemented by a small survey, were conducted by beneficiaries and employees of a specialist charity supporting young fathers, with regional practitioners, service managers and minoritised fathers. These explored how and why services, which traditionally serve White, working-class communities, might be ‘hard(er) to access’ for minoritised fathers and how this might be addressed. In a context of considerable constraint for services, this article identifies how more accessible, inclusive support pathways and environments might be fostered. Key processes explored include how services can increase their accessibility, visibility, and appeal; become more proactive with outreach to fathers in diverse communities; and sustain father-inclusive support for all fathers.

Featured journal article

Instigating father-inclusive practice interventions with young fathers and multi-agency professionals: the transformative potential of qualitative longitudinal and co-creative methodologies

Interdisciplinary social sciences literature on the value and significance of engaged fatherhood and father-inclusive approaches to practice for enhanced family outcomes have begun to reach a consensus. Yet there has been less attention to how research knowledge about fatherhood, including that which is co-produced with and for fathers, can be more effectively translated and embedded in practice and policy contexts. This article elaborates on a cumulative, empirically driven process that has established new relational ecologies between young fathers, multi-agency professionals and researchers. It illustrates how these ecologies, supported by longitudinal and co-creative research combined, are driving societal transformations through knowledge exchange and the instigation of new father-inclusive practice interventions that address the marginalisation of young fathers. The methodologies, including the co-creation of the Young Dads Collective and its impacts on young fathers and multi-agency professionals, are evaluated, confirming them as powerful and productive mechanisms for embedding father-inclusive practices within existing support and policy systems.

You can access the article via the journal webpage or to request a copy.

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Featured journal article

Perceptions of gender equality and engaged fatherhood among young fathers

Parenthood and the welfare state in Sweden and the UK

This article presents analyses from an international empirical study of young fatherhood in Sweden and the UK. Young fathers in both countries express an encouraging commitment to contemporary cultural imperatives for engaged fatherhood. However, differences in welfare and parental leave systems have a clear influence on the extent to which the young men in the respective countries can fulfil their parental commitments.

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Featured journal article

The Impacts of the Covid-19 Pandemic and Lockdown Policies on Young Fathers: Comparative Insights from the UK and Sweden

COVID-19 and young dads

This article explores the impacts of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown policies on young fathers and their families in the UK and Sweden.

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Briefing Papers

Featured briefing paper

A dynamic perspective of young fathers’ well-being

Predictive and protective factors across their mental health pathways

This briefing paper explores the dynamic mental health pathways of young fathers in their transition to fatherhood. We argue that they navigate a well-being spectrum over time as they adapt to their new identities and responsibilities where young fatherhood can be source of joy and pride. However, the struggles associated with young parenthood may tip some young men into periods of mental ill-health.

Download Briefing Paper

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Featured briefing paper

Responding to young dads in a different way

Two open access reports were developed from this Leeds Social Science Institute funded project, which was led by Dr Anna Tarrant between April 2016 and April 2017. The first is an evidence review of existing research about practice support for young fathers. The second reports on the Responding to Young Dads in a Different Way project and its key findings.

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Featured briefing paper

Wave One: Exploring the impacts of Covid-19 on young fathers

Early analyses of our findings from Wave One of interviews from the study. We explore the impacts of the Covid-19 crisis on young fathers and the professionals who supported them.

Briefing Paper One: Negotiating ‘earning’ and ‘caring’ through the COVID-19 crisis: change and continuities in the parenting and employment trajectories of young fathers

Briefing Paper Two: From social isolation to local support: Relational change and continuities for young fathers in the context of the COVID-19 crisis

Briefing Paper Three: Supporting at a distance: the challenges and opportunities of supporting young fathers through the COVID-19 pandemic

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Policy Briefing Papers

Featured policy briefing

Father-inclusive Practice

Definitions

Policy Brief 1
Key principles of father-inclusive practice

Policy Brief 2
Models of good practice for work with young fathers: co-creating knowledge about inclusive and intersectional approaches in the ‘Diverse Dads’ project

Policy Brief 3
Models of good practice for work with young fathers: the Grimsby Dads Collective case study

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Written submissions for parliamentary inquiries

Featured parliamentary inquiry submission

Childcare reform

Following Young Fathers Further submission

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Featured parliamentary inquiry submission

House of Lords Youth Unemployment Inquiry

Skills for every young person

Our evidence on young parents was cited several times in the final report, where young parents were acknowledged.

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Reports, including evaluations and toolkits

Featured report

DigiDAD Evaluation

One Year On

The Following Young Fathers Further team conducted an evaluation of the North East Young Dads and Lads' new digital offer for young fathers called DigiDAD.

DigiDAD is a unique, pioneering e-learning parenting platform made by and for young fathers. First created during the COVID-19 pandemic, DigiDAD features evidence-informed content designed to support the informational requirements of young fathers.

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Featured report

Diverse Dads reports

The Diverse Dads team launched two open access reports based on the outcomes of the research as the ‘Diverse Dads Collaborative. These include key research findings and recommendations for good practice, as informed by the young fathers and professionals who participated in the study.

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Featured report

Final report series 2023

Co-creating with young fathers

This eight-part report series reports on our findings and the innovations from the Following Young Fathers Further study between January 2020 and December 2023. These have been launched at the final conference, which took place in Lincoln on Thursday 7th December 2023.

We intend to develop further outputs from the study, supported by an additional three years of funding that will extend our work again to January 2027. So watch this space!

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Featured report

Grimsby Dads Collective Interim report

Interim report

Featured toolkit

NCRM Telephone Methods Toolkit

The pandemic has prompted many social scientists to rethink their research methods and adapt to researching in ways that accommodate social distancing rules. Telephone interviews offer a remote route to fieldwork but their value for researchers extends beyond the pandemic. This toolkit considers the role of telephone interviewing in qualitative research and the advantages and challenges of this method and attendant practical and ethical questions. We provide practical reflections around how to address the challenges associated with telephone interviews and draw on examples from current research.

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Featured toolkit

Think Dad!

The Think Dad! Toolkit, co-created with young fathers and developed with professionals and services in mind who want to improve how they work with young fathers.

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You can also learn more about our work via our recorded webinars, presentations, and blog posts.

From our partners and young dads

[daughter]'s almost two-year-old. She came up the house and she actually really liked it. Preferably my house is the best place for her to, for the contact to be, if I’m honest, 'cause we just buy toys for her all the time. We’ve got a lovely garden that she can play in, lovely, big, and we’ve got a sandpit in there. We’ve been buying loads of things for her to play with to keep her occupied.

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Nathan, 21
I was 17 when I had my child

[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.

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Housing Charity

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.

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Children's Charity

If your child’s with the mother, like your relationship with her depends on your relationship with the child, innit. That’s what I realised a lot, like you can try and be bitter, you can try and be this, be that, but it’s just gonna push you further away from your child, innit.

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Jackson, 21

I wanna fight for more stuff for dads. Like I do wanna have that extra support for new dads or even existing dads that we don’t get now 'cause we’re still important too although obviously the mum does need the majority a’ the care because obviously of the after care and the birth. But like the dads take it extremely hard as well. And obviously with having no support I think it increases the rise of mental health.

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Simon, 31
I became a father for the first time at 20. I am now a dad of 3.

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...

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Jock, 33
I was 23 when I had my child

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.

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Children and Families Support Organisation

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.

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Children's Charity

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.

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Children and Families Support Organisation

...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

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Toby, 26
I was 24 when I had my first child.

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. 

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Ben, 31
I was 20 when I had my child

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.

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Young Fathers' Support Organisation

it’s still…the…sense of judgement I get from other people when they find out that I have a child.And they say, ‘oh how old is she’.I say, ‘oh she’s ten’. And they say, ‘oh how old are you?’. Like you don’t need to know that....I know exactly where that thought process is going, you know. It’s like, ‘oh you look really young and you’ve had a kid’. It’s like, ‘yeah I know, I was there!’

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Ben, 31
I was 20 when I had my child

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