I am leaving the Fatherhood Institute: my future plans

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I am leaving the Fatherhood Institute: my future plans

January 5th, 2009

In February I am leaving the Fatherhood Institute. I have, along with two others among the founders, been with the organisation for nine years. We started off marginal, obscure and mistrusted and now the Institute has been recognised as a positive influence. As with other organisations I have created in the past, it is now time for me to move on to do what I do best – make new things happen.

I am setting out now to do three things in this same field.

I would like to help some larger statutory organisations and children’s organisations to develop work on fatherhood and childhood, particularly around the issues where little progress has been made in the last ten years. There are things that the Fatherhood Institute has not been able to achieve that other organisations could. I will be offering my services to these organisations in the coming years.

I want to create a new national campaign of health professionals, children’s organisations, parenting organisations and equality organisations to bring about a new “family friendly” culture in maternity and health visiting services. I believe the way mothers and fathers are channelled in such different directions as soon as a baby is born in the UK is a fundamental cause of family breakdown, gender inequality and weak father-child relationships.

I will continue to manage www.dad.info, a service that offers parenting information to fathers directly, instead of the current focus of almost all parewnting information only on mothers. I will work with the Dad Info team to expand the distribution of materials to every maternity unit and every Children’s Centre in UK.

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Viewing 4 Comments

Peggy Haynes 05/09/2009 01:33 PM 1 point
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I think its unfair for men to want equal rights with mothers over their children, as MOTHERS are the ones who have to go through the pain, and risks, and after-effects of pregnancy (many women, including myself,suffer appalling nausea, sickness and other horrible sympoms) and all the pain of labour and birth (which is often horrendous), - while MEN are fortunate enought to be able to produce countless children in a lifetime very easily indeed, well into old age

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DuncanFisher 05/09/2009 02:32 PM 1 point
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I do not advocate fathers' rights. The key issue is the well-being of
children and their own rights. We know from experience and research
that fathers have a key influence on their children - it can be good
or bad - and that is why we need to think about fatherhood.

equal rights with mothers. The issue is the wellbeing of children and
what works best for them.

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Aiison 01/07/2009 10:29 AM 1 point
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I had had no idea that fatherhood was such an important feature in so many key policy areas. I'll be changing my views from now on. I think the www.fatherhoodinstitute.com site is fantastic for professionals like me - and have already sent families to your www.dad.info site that you will be running from now on. best, Alison (Derby)

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Tom 01/06/2009 11:58 PM 1 point
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Duncan, your work with the Fatherhood Institute was an inspiration to all of
us who helped you create the organisation, first as Fathers Direct and then as
it moved into the mainstream of the parenting sector, and I for one can't
thank you enough for the work you did to guide us through the formation and
growth of the organisation.

Your ability to navigate through the twists and turns of policy, funding and
market forces helped us grow from five people with an idea into one of the
most dynamic and influential organisations in its field.

Your recent achievement of brokering a partnership that has persuaded the
government to release £55 million of funding for services for the children
of separated families is a testament to your amazing ability to carefully
nurture trust among partners and formulate practical ways forward to reach
our goals.

I'm sure the Institute will miss you very much, and I am very happy to still
be working with you!

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