I’ve worked to improve family services ever since we had our first daughter in 1996.
- I co-founded the Fatherhood Institute to challenge how services only engaged with mothers. We based our work on the evidence that it was better for children (and mothers) if services also engaged with others in the family. I ran that for 10 years.
- I set up Dad.Info and sold that in 2010 to the Family Matters Institute after the website had reached 10,000 visitors a week.
- Then I set up the Kids in the Middle coalition, backed by the Agony Aunts of UK, in order to campaign for better support for children in separating families.
Right now, I have six challenges:
- Working with Connect Assist, I am promoting the use of state-of-the-art communications in children’ services – using phone, Facebook, email, ichat, text and mobile all at the same time in an integrated way. In the command of such tools, services can reach more families for less and by more inclusive of diversity – by age, gender, language, etc.
- Working with Connect Assist and Maternity Assist (website coming!), I am promoting the use of the same state-of-the-art multi-channel communications by maternity services, as a way of helping midwives cope with increasing demands on their time.
- I am frustrated that the Kids in the Middle campaign failed to achieve its original objective – to create better services for children in separating families. I am going to keep poking funders and organisations to remind them that the need is still there!
- Working with Family Matters Institute, I’m helping to get Dad.Info really well search optimised to meet the needs of fathers searching on-line. We are also working on a new project, Fathers’ Breakfasts, a fantastic corporate programme originating in New Zealand – we want to get the Prime Minister to speak at the first event.
- Following my work in 2011 for Action for Children on children and social capital, I want to see the work of Dr Gary Melton in USA given proper consideration in UK. He demonstrated fantastic reductions in abuse and neglect through a programme that focused on getting families to help each other, rather than it being all about services (us) helping families (them). This concept is rather challenging to the status quo, but we can’t ignore the results if we wish to leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of child welfare.
- I want to create a space on-line where experts, parents and policy makers can discuss the impacts of gender on families – how gender ideas can constrain opportunities for children and flexibility for parents. This is a hot topic every time it emerges in the media, but the only discussions of parenting on-line have “for mum” stamped on the front door, which is itself one of the problematic gender constraints on family life.
I live in the Brecon Beacons National Park in Wales, with my wife and two daughters, now 11 and 15 and near all the grandparents. I spend a large part of my life transporting girls to athletics competitions, dancing classes and horse-riding and I love it!
