Children North East
Key Facts
Location
Project Criteria
Project funding
£212,011
Funding round
Children North East is a regional children's charity established in 1891. It identifies the needs and promotes the interests of children, young people and those of their carers by providing a range of community based services in North East England.
Research tells us that fathers are important for families, and have as much to offer in the successful rearing of children as mothers. Much of the formal support for parents is offered to mothers, but the recent "National Service Framework for Children and Young People" supports a cultural shift to include fathers in all aspects of a child's well-being. We are using our Parenting Fund grant to set up a Regional Resource centre for Fatherhood towards making this shift.
The Centre is to be based in our Durham office. It will provide advice and information to organisations and agencies that are developing their fatherhood work as well as to individual fathers and fathers' groups. Also on offer is advice and consultancy on how to develop fatherhood work within organisations and information on father friendly policies in the work place.
The project employs a Centre Manager and a Training and Development Manager, supported by a part-time administrative worker. Based on a model of effective partnership work the centre provides the following key services:
- consultancy - providing advice and information to organisations wishing to develop or extend their Fatherwork
- providing information on tried and tested tools to assess what is working and what needs to change for an organisation to engage effectively with men and fathers
- training - provision of accredited training programmes as part of a whole organisation approach to positive engagement with Fathers. The Resource Centre works in partnership with organisations to develop and deliver tailor made training solutions to meet specific needs
- online resource centre, data bank and Fatherwork forum - providing information and peer support to workers developing Father friendly practice
- programme of events - developing and promoting Fatherwork in the North East of England
- drop in centre, library and training venue - for Fathers and Fatherworkers in the region
- develop opportunities for volunteers to support families and fathers.
The Centre will set up a regional network for practitioners who have the responsibility to engage with fathers, male carers and their families. It will also develop and run an events programme that will promote fatherhood work in the region and seek out, promote and share information on good practice and innovation.
The Centre will pull together data about services and resources in order to provide fathers with clear sources of information that meet their needs, for example information on childcare, contact, behavioural support, welfare benefits and employment rights.