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Engaging fathers in child welfare services

Engaging fathers in child welfare services. Interrogating the politics. The ‘politics’ . New Labour The Social Investment State Background in relation to fathers – concern about the ‘absent’ and the ‘distant’ father What have they done? Absent father Distant father .

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Engaging fathers in child welfare services

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  1. Engaging fathers in child welfare services Interrogating the politics

  2. The ‘politics’ • New Labour • The Social Investment State • Background in relation to fathers – concern about the ‘absent’ and the ‘distant’ father • What have they done? • Absent father • Distant father

  3. New Labour and fathers • Parenthood is for life ( birth and genetic focus) • Timid in relation to structural changes ( in the context of a ‘long hours’ and flexible economy) • A project of moral exhortation • What is going on with children’s services though?

  4. Engaging fathers • ‘The government believes that much more can be done to release the potential improvements in outcomes for children through better engagement between fathers and services for children and families. This requires a culture change-from maternity services to early years, and from health visitors to schools- changing the way that they work to ensure that services reach and support fathers as well as mothers’ (HM Treasury/DfES, 2007:34-35) • Just one example!!!

  5. Engaging fathers in children’s services • What is meant by ‘outcomes for children’? • The research base – emphasis on father involvement and outcomes for children! • The politics – whose voice is being heard – where has this agenda come from?

  6. Opportunities • Can encourage gender equality • Support mothers, fathers and children • Deconstructs categorical thinking • Going with the grain of change? • Re-thinking masculinities • Brings ‘gender talk’ in

  7. Dangers • Who is the ‘father’? • Where is the mother? • The child is everywhere? • Reconstructing families • Learning from ‘contact’ developments

  8. Contact • Women are invisible or constructed as obstructive • Prioritisation of a language around children – women’s ‘autonomy’ ? • Contact is the ‘right’ of the child • The importance of continued contact is an unreserved ‘good’ -the research base • The politics: the government, fathers’ organisations and women’s organisations.

  9. Window, dressing, increasing state surveillance, and/or working with important and necessary tensions to move away from seeing child welfare as women’s work?

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