CYP Now - Policy & Practice: Policy into practice - Every children's centreshould target fathers

Despite 30 years of research concluding that the active and positive involvement of fathers is good for children's educational and emotional development, the form it should take is only now being laid out in public policy.

The recent Planning and Performance Management Guidance for Children'sCentres describes reaching and engaging fathers as a core part of theaims and objectives of a children's centre. This includes involvingfathers in strategic planning, ensuring fathers are able to accessinformation and support, and targeting dads specifically in the 30 percent most deprived areas.

All of which is very encouraging given the concerns raised by a NationalAudit Office report, which found that children's centres were makingless progress in improving services for fathers, and a report by theTrust for the Study of Adolescence, which found work with young fathersto be "piecemeal and not fully mainstreamed in all areas".

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