home » groups » UK Fatherhood Forum » Forums » The UK Fatherhood Forum » Generic discussion

Discussion: The Future of the UK Fatherhood Forum

Submitted by Moderator on Mon, 26/06/2006 - 19:02.

At a meeting of the UK Fatherhood forum in Jan 2007, the following agreement was reached about the function and operation of the forum. See also the attached terms of reference.

If you have any comments or ideas you would like to share with other members click on 'add a comment' below or come to one of the forum meetings.

UK Fatherhood Forum

Mission
To establish and maintain a United Kingdom wide community of interest comprised of individuals and organisations that are committed to ensuring that men who parent are supported to realise their full potential as a fathers

Definition of Father
The Forum defines a father as
“any man in a significant parenting relationship with children and young people regardless of circumstancesâ€

Vision:
Our vision is of a society which
• values and encourages family relationships;
• enables all men who parent to have a full role in family life and are encouraged, enabled, supported and resourced to do so
• gives all children a strong and positive relationship with their father and other male carers
• prepares boys and girls for future shared roles in caring for children.

Value Base:
The UK Fatherhood Forum …
• views fathers as a diverse group of individuals who have a range of needs which must be met in a variety of ways;
• acknowledges that the roles of fathers and mothers are inter-dependent, complementary and equally valuable;
• advocates a culture wherein the active involvement of fathers in family life is the norm;
• recognises the valuable contribution that fathers can and do make to family life;
• believes that there is a need for increased support for all fathers;
• supports expressions of fatherhood which promote positive interaction with both mothers and children.


In 2004, Colin Fowler, of the Men's Project submitted a draft terms of reference for discussion. Click here to access the document or use the link below to add your comment.

NB: If you are not registered and logged in to the site then your comments will be sent for modewration before being published. To register click on the link on the top left.

AttachmentSize
UK Fatherhood Forum Structure.doc50.5 KB
UKFF terms ref.doc40 KB
» login or register to post comments | previous forum topic | printer friendly version | 956 reads

Mark, you asked for views on

Submitted by David Bartlett (not verified) on Thu, 20/07/2006 - 15:43.

Mark, you asked for views on the future of the Forum. I think the Forum has a wealth of experience to draw on in its current membership, and should be able to use this to good effect. Previous thinking (that led to the terms of reference for the group) has included the Forum having a role in:
feeding in policy ideas and lobbying for change, drawing on experience on the ground
networking for people working with fathers – to share good practice and new developments
maybe having a larger event to carry these goals forward too (eg a conference/national networking day)

My impression (although I have not been at recent meetings…) is that the Forum has mainly worked as 2 (networking). 1 and 3 are important too, but take a lot more effort and time and money, clearly. Fathers Direct does an increasing amount of working to develop policy nationally, and this is usually done in partnership with other agencies. It might be worth thinking about how ideas/experiences from the Forum’s members could be fed in to this process, somehow. I think a national networking day might also be good.

I cannot commit to attending meetings regularly, but would like to have the option of attending when I can, and keeping ‘in the loop’.

» login or register to post comments

Three main functions were

Submitted by Moderator on Mon, 26/06/2006 - 19:12.

Three main functions were discussed - networking, consulting on future policy/lobbying to enable future work, and an exploration of aspects of fatherhood.

We hope this website could assist people with some of this by creating a space where people in the network can share ideas, review documents, search for useful info etc.

If anybody has a draft terms of reference for the group then please upload it to the site so people can comment

David Van der Velde

» login or register to post comments