Written evidence from The National Children’s Bureau – A Better Start [SPL0016]

Introduction

Gender roles and stereotypes are interwoven in the fabric of family life. Reducing gender inequality and its devastating impact on children and families can contribute to a multitude of positive outcomes in the short term and the long term, for individuals, and wider society. The current parental leave system does not support working parents, particularly in areas of high deprivation.

A Better Start is a ten-year (2015-2025), £215 million programme set up by The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest community funder in the UK. Five A Better Start partnerships based in Blackpool, Bradford, Lambeth, Nottingham and Southend are supporting families to give their babies and very young children the best possible start in life.

The partnerships have a decade of evidence informing approaches to tackle gender inequalities and engage fathers and other carers. A Better Start Partnerships have achieved a huge amount around bridging the gap between maternal and paternal support, and challenging the stigma around fathers taking on caregiving roles, and playing a leading role in their child’s development.

Promoting gender equality and engaging fathers in early years services

It is crucial to consider the impact of initiating a culture change around paternity leave and the father’s role in a child’s life. The ABS partnerships recognise the need to create systems that support families during pregnancy and early parenthood which are inclusive of fathers and male caregivers and recognise them as equal partners in parenting, and acknowledge the barriers to engagement. The partnerships have trailblazed promoting gender equality:

• All the ABS partnerships have explicitly put plans in place to engage fathers and other male caregivers around the baby/young child. The partnerships have also been responsive to the diverse communities within which they are all based, identifying gaps in provision.
• Workforce training has been developed as a fundamental action for the reduction of marginalisation and bias fathers face from the earliest stages of parenthood in pregnancy. The recognition of their role and value as a parent is integral to their continued belief of their own right to participate in parenting, both privately and publicly. The Partnerships have developed the existing workforce – including dedicated front-line community teams – to be responsive to the locality and better advocates for fathers. This has shown to be sustainable, efficient, and cost-effective in comparison to creating additional father engagement posts.

• The partnerships provide bespoke services for fathers, which brings fathers and service providers closer together, and creates community spaces for fathers with shared experiences. Creating shared journeys of services and communities provides a stronger ownership to provide equity in providing a child some support towards 100% of the parenting available.

By shifting the narrative around the male caregiver’s traditional ‘role’ in the family model, and destigmatising shared parental responsibilities, this will unlock the potential for more equal caregiving and shared domestic labour between parents.

A Better Start’s challenges and barriers with engaging fathers

• Health services during the perinatal period are predominantly aimed at women and babies, with far less provisions for men and fathers. There are no dedicated statutory services for males in the perinatal period. Whilst medical management for mother and baby needs to be a main priority, the impact fathers have on their partner and baby are not embedded in practice. For example, despite knowing about the vulnerability that fatherhood brings for men with regards to their mental health, health visitors view their role as dedicated to women and their babies.
• A number of ABS respondents in the ABS National Evaluation reported that they found it difficult to engage fathers. Efforts to address this included offering groups specifically targeted towards fathers as feedback had shown that some fathers had found mixed groups uncomfortable. Personalised support was another strategy; one partnership had recently appointed a dedicated dads’ peer support worker who was a father himself.
• Another challenge is the predominantly female workforce which support families during pregnancy, birth and the early years, such as midwives and health visitors. It has been suggested that men may feel especially self-conscious about disclosing issues to women.
• Families from ethnically diverse backgrounds may also encounter greater barriers in accessing pregnancy and early childhood services. 7.8% of households in Nottingham City have no family members who speak English as a main language.  Language and cultural barriers can form a considerable obstacle for families to be well-served by pregnancy and early childhood services and may contribute to unacceptable disparities in outcomes.

A Better Start’s evidence and best practice for engaging fathers

• In Southend, they have employed a “Think Family” approach to perinatal mental health services. which aims to move away from purely maternal thinking seen in traditional PMH services, which are often being treated simply as an extension of maternity services. They aim to see fathers/men not simply as an add-on-to the vital work they do with mothers (seeing fathers only as a conduit for further supporting maternal/child wellbeing) but as a separate entity, equally in need of help, while still recognising the important secondary effects paternal wellbeing can have on co-parenting and on the child both in the short and long term.
•                In Nottingham, they have undertaken a range of activities to promote father-inclusivity, such as the father-inclusive Family Mentor service, commissioning local organisations to build father-inclusive communities and deliver father-inclusive support, as well as resources, training and conferences to instigate a local movement for father-inclusivity. Examples of good practice by SSBC include ‘An information pack for new fathers’ and a ‘Think Dads’ digital media campaign.

The information guide for new fathers was developed by working with local maternity and antenatal services across the city. It is a resource pack in a variety of languages. The aim of the pack was to prepare fathers for when their baby was born and provide information and advice about what to expect as a new father. Fathers considered the resource a useful source of reference, as well as a tool to share with others and professionals believe it is especially helpful for fathers from more vulnerable backgrounds.

“My wife and I have always struggled with mental health and anxiety. We found it extremely hard during lockdown. Our Family Mentor supported us through the Small Steps at Home programme. She also gave us emotional support at a time when we really needed it. Hayley has been visiting us now for over 2 years and we have both learned so much from her. While she was visiting us, Hayley suggested that I take part in FRED [=Fathers Reading Every Day]. I wasn’t too sure at the beginning as I struggle with reading, but Hayley told me about other ways of telling a story to my baby. I was happy to give it a go and began reading to my baby every night. I would encourage all dads to sign up for FRED. It really helped me to bond with my baby. Getting support from the Family Mentor service encouraged me to do something meaningful and worthwhile for other families. Now my child is a bit older, I volunteer at Aspley groups. I also thought it would help build up my confidence. My wife and other family all thought that it would be a good idea too - so here I am!” (Local Dad).

•                In Blackpool, a group of local dads aimed to create a ‘brotherhood’ of likeminded men to help improve their physical, emotional, and social wellbeing, regardless of their footballing ability. Its launch was made possible by a grant of £1,000, that was awarded through Blackpool Better Start’s ‘Street to Scale’ project. This scheme encourages local people to submit ideas and proposals on how money could be used to help families and children in the community and they now run three training sessions weekly at local community pitches. With their focus being ‘more than just football’, each session starts with a peer-to-peer support chat; enabling players to meet new people and talk openly with likeminded fathers, particularly for those who became new parents during lockdown.

“For us it’s never about score line; it's about men getting out of the house, talking, getting fit and enjoying life. At the end of every session, everyone walks away with a smile on their face. Our mental health and well-being impacts upon our everyday lives and during lockdown I personally really benefitted from meeting friends at the park for a kick about. I saw firsthand how football can really help to channel thoughts and feelings into something positive. That’s what we wanted to create at Blackpool Football Therapy. Our motto is ‘encourage, motivate, inspire’. With 95% of our players being dads, step-dads or carers, it’s so important for us to offer a space to help boost motivation, socialise and get fit – which all helps to reduce stress, anxiety and depression. As a dad myself, I know what positive impact this can have at home.”

They have also delivered a ‘Talking dads national conference.’ The event focussed on the important role that dads play in child development and the impact of mental health issues in fatherhood. The conference also gave the opportunity to showcase the innovative engagement work they are currently offering to dads in Blackpool.

•                In Bradford, they have targeted engagement with fathers by offering woodworking sessions. Practitioners carried out targeted engagement work as a baseline, visiting mosques and schools, meeting dads at homes and also at local events. They asked them what kinds of activities they would like to engage with, and the programme developed from there. They engaged diverse backgrounds, including a single dad, a foster dad and dads from Somalia, Burma and Afghanistan.

Creating a safe and welcoming space with focused activities allowed the conversations around early childhood development to take place. They learned that their participants were keen to have strong and involved relationships with their 0-3s and were ready to explore how they could be improved. They even felt confident to share challenges and how often they felt side-lined or lacked confidence in their parenting skills.

•                In Lambeth, their Enhanced Casework is a bespoke service for parents who are experiencing, or at risk of, domestic abuse during pregnancy or in their child’s early years. A small team of caseworkers provide practical and emotional support for clients through a gender aware lens. LEAP Enhanced Casework supports families at a critical point: when domestic abuse may begin or escalate and when children and parents are particularly vulnerable. In addition to reducing the risk in relation to abuse, and the need for intervention later, it also connects isolated families with other services and the wider community and builds capacity in the local early years workforce to identify and respond to domestic abuse.

Addressing paternal mental health as a key enabler for increased engagement

• Parents are more vulnerable to mental ill health in general, while families’ increased interaction with health services during pregnancy and the early years offer points of contact with opportunities to identify needs and offer adequate support systems. Often the focus is on postnatal depression in birthing mothers, however fathers and non-birthing partners are also more likely to develop mental health challenges during this time.

• Mental health services should be family-oriented, father-inclusive, and LGBT+ inclusive, with a special focus on support during the perinatal period. More research is needed on the mental health of fathers and other caregivers during this life stage to enable effective assessment and treatment. Consideration of men’s specific barriers to seeking help will need consideration to allow for effective engagement. It is also important to recognise that a traumatic birth can have lasting impacts on the non-birthing partner, in addition to the birthing parent. The Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England should commission research into fathers’ mental health during pregnancy and the first few years of parenthood to inform improved commissioning of services.

• Mental health support services aimed at male caregivers during pregnancy should be developed and offered alongside perinatal mental health services on a national level, acknowledging the increased risk to men’s mental health during the transition to parenthood.

Recommended financial models for parental leave

• The current "maternal transfer" model of shared parental leave sends the message that a father’s role in the first 1,001 days of a child’s life is optional, and that a mother’s role needs to be sacrificed for paternal involvement. Designated funding for male-identifying caregivers is crucial for ensuring the cultural shift towards equal parental responsibility.

• Fathers should have a day one right to parental leave, meaning that fathers are entitled to paternity leave the moment that they start their job, and do not have to wait until after a probationary period, or have to accrue a specific period of employment prior to gaining access to this leave.

• Equitable, accessible financial models will create the best chance for a father to have a central role in the child’s life, which is crucial for early years health and development outcomes.

Ensuring paternity leave policies are inclusive of all employment arrangements

• The A Better Start policy team discussed the prospect of advocating for paternity leave during a ‘Community of Practice’ in Southend in October 2024, which included consulting both the local workforce and parents.

• When advocating for statutory paternity and shared parental leave, it is crucial to give due consideration to fathers on zero hour contracts and self-employed parents. Parents in informal working arrangements, or parents who have unstable migration status, may be less likely to be in formal employment contracts and have access to certain benefits.

• Introducing paternity leave on the premises of permanent employment may exclude the most vulnerable families from financial compensation. This means that those that would benefit most from this policy change, and those most impacted by the far-reaching repercussions of financial inequality and deprivation, will be further marginalised and pushed into poverty.

Workforce and culture

• Learning from the ABS partnerships have highlighted the importance of a culture shift to recognise dads and LGBTQ+ partners during pregnancy, ensuring inclusive language and programmes throughout. Programmes and the workforce should be gender aware and gender inclusive across the first 1001 days and beyond.
• Communications and project materials should be fully gender inclusive.

January 2025