Being a Dad

We worked in collaboration with Empowering Parents Empowering Communities

In 2022, we worked with the successful Empowering Parents, Empowering Communities (EPEC) model to pilot a programme focused on dads. Being a Dad was a parent-led parenting programme for fathers of children aged between 2-11 years-old in Lewisham, Lambeth, Southwark, Bromley and Croydon. A total of 21 dads took part in the eight-week online course and email support offer, which completed in July 2022. Evaluation data showed that from dad’s taking part, improvement outcomes (e.g. parenting goals, wellbeing and concerns about children) are over and above the national and local combined norms. Following involvement in the programme, two dads took up EPEC training to become EPEC parent group leaders and are now delivering groups to dads and parents in their area – demonstrating the ongoing impact of the work.

The learnings from our Being a Dad pilot have contributed to the wider roll out of EPEC national and the dads that deliver groups locally are now running a termly perinatal dads group (alongside mums being offered Baby and Us group). There is an ongoing commitment in both south east and south west London to rolling out EPEC and enabling access to support to both mums and dads in the community run by trained parents from the community.

What some dads had to say about the first course:

"When I signed up I expected a tonne of advice and strategies. What I didn't expect was the sense of community I got from a bunch of dads who genuinely seem to understand."
- SI, father of two, Lewisham

"Being in a group with dads like this is reassuring as it's sometimes hard to communicate with your kids and having these simple tools to deal with everyday problems is a game changer."
- JA, father of three, Lambeth

"This group is extremely helpful and easy way to break down the understanding of how to deal with children and provides you with the tools to handle many issues with kids."
- TG, father of one, Lambeth

"The course provides good tools to be the same dad that I am, but better. It is also both enlightening and comforting to meet all those other parents that are struggling like I am (including the instructors)."
- SG, father of one, Southwark

"Seeing the world from a child's perspective is like a gift a father hands over and shares in the enjoyment."
- TJ, father of one, Lambeth

Parent Action

We worked with community leaders at Parents and Communities Together (now Parent Action) to develop two new courses – Mindful Mamas and Parent Upskilling. Parent Action are a charity who work with parents to build communities, provide support, and win change.

Mindful Mamas

Mindful Mamas was a seven-week wellbeing course which is parent-focused and co-produced with attendees. Six courses were developed across sites in Lambeth and Southwark between March 2022 to July 2023, working with 61 mothers.

The aim of the course was to improve the mental wellbeing of local mothers with young children experiencing challenges and barriers to support. After attending the Mindful Mamas course, average wellbeing scores increased for all groups of attendees. The impact was particularly strong amongst attendees with a high risk of depression before the course. Attendees reported that establishing a supportive and judgement-free community, re-establishing an identity outside of parenthood and developing confidence were keys aspects of the course that lead to improvements in wellbeing. An additional notable benefit was improved relationships with children. The empowering, parentfocused and collaborative ethos of Mindful Mamas was highlighted by attendees as being at the centre of its success.

Upskilling Course

Alongside the wellbeing courses developed with Parent Action, we were also keen to explore how the reach of important parent peer-support work developed could be expanded. Parent Action worked to develop an ‘Upskilling’ course to help organisations offering parental peer-support to develop their approach and harness the power of parents to support mental health and wellbeing. Across a series of nine training sessions and workshops, 12 Parent Action parents and the Parent Action team co-designed the Upskilling training course. The active Parent Facilitators were aged between 27-47 years-old, and each had between one and three children. Over 75 per cent identified as belonging to a minority ethnic group, as is representative of the local area. In 2022, Parent Facilitators led two complete courses at local community organisations working with eight parents.