What is the Including Men site about
IncludingMen.com is a UK based website to support organisations to be more inclusive of men..
Who owns the web site?
Development of the site has been supported by Children North East, a children’s charity with over 100 years experience of improving outcomes for children and their families.
The vision is that the site will develop and membership will grow to the point where the site will become self sustaining through its members. At this point It is the intention of Children North East that ownership of the site be handed over to the members once a suitably constituted organisation has been formed.
Why was the Including Men site Developed?
The site was developed in response to the need for a ‘knowledge management infrastructure’ around the development of services to include men.
Including men in services is becoming increasingly significant. Research is pointing to the positive impact father involvement has on outcomes for children and government policy like the ‘Gender Equality Directive’ place an obligation on public sector services to be inclusive.
Children North East have been working with organisation for over ten years to include men and there are lots of great examples of effective and innovative work. The knowledge bank on the IncludingMen.com web site is a tool to make that knowledge widely available.
Creating opportunities for practitioners to get together, share ideas and work on joint projects is a proven method in helping to bring about organisational change. The groups section of the IncludingMen.com web site provides a virtual space where people can get together and share ideas or develop joint projects.
Who administers the Including Men site
Children North East manage the day to day administration of the site. Regional groups can be managed by local people. If you would like to manage a group in your region then please contact ask@IncludingMen.com
What do group managers need to do?
Managing a group means that you will be notified when one of your group members adds an item to the knowledge bank. You have responsibility to check the appropriateness of any items added to your group.
Who can join the Including Men site?
Registering with the site is free to all adults (over the age of eighteen). The site holds a range of useful resources for policy makers, managers, researchers and practitioners on the subject of including men in services. Fathers, Mothers and carers who have an interest in the impact of father involvement on improving outcomes for children will also find the site useful.
What are the Conditions of Use
Please see our disclaimer and acceptable use policy.
How does the Including Men site work
There is a knowledge bank where users can search for information like events, word documents, presentations, flyers, posters, training packs and much, much more.
Members join groups relevant to their location and use the groups to link up and share information with other members in their area.
What is the knowledge bank
Just like a normal bank the knowledge bank allows user to ‘make deposits’ by uploading info about their work or project or by adding a link to another website.
Users can search for a key word or list items by topic and/or theme.
What is a group
In the same way as you might hold a meeting or send out emails to a mailing list, the groups tool allows registered members to come together around a common interest. On this site groups are mainly based on geography. There are groups for each of the nine English regions as well as groups for Scotland, Wales and N Ireland.
In some areas local groups have been set up to support the work in a single local authority area. If you would like a group to support a network in your area we can set this up for you free of charge. Contact Ask@IncludingMen.com
What technology does the Including Men site use?
IncludingMen.com uses a software platform called Drupal. This is an open source ‘free to use’ software development. We chose Drupal because the approach of open source software is a good fit with the ethics of a voluntary organisation. To find out more about the ethics of open source software visit.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_ethics
Need more help?
We are developing a help manual which can be accessed here - http://www.includingmen.com/forum/188