Part 4: Discussion and conclusion
Social changes in the extent to which men are-or would like to be-involved in child rearing, combined with evidence that positive father involvement is beneficial from a personal, child and family perspective, suggests fathers should be appropriately included in child and family services and have access to effective support services as well. Despite this, due to a number of sociocultural, service and other factors, father participation is generally thought to be quite low.
As well as providing an evaluation of father engagement in the SFCS, while based on a small sample of convenience, this study contributes to the Australian evidence base concerning men's involvement and access to family related services.
The aim of the study was to describe the role of fathers in selected programs and identify successful strategies for engaging with fathers. In relation to the extent to which fathers were engaging with SFCS programs and services, the relatively low response rate makes it difficult to draw conclusions about engagement and service provision across the entire initiative. However, on the basis of the responses received, it appeared that fathers were variably involved in a diverse range of services and across the SFCS. With the exception of services targeting new parents, single parents and indigenous parents, where there was a low level of father participation, services aiming to improve the knowledge, skills and social support of parents generally had a fair representation of father clients. Although, as expected, the data indicate that women dominate the SFCS as service users. By their very nature, the services that were most successful in engaging fathers were specifically tailored for men and were exclusive to fathers.
Fathers participated in a wide range of activities within the SFCS, not just those that were social or 'fun'. Fathers were seeking support to achieve a range of outcomes, from establishing a support network to developing skills and resources to respond to a child's special needs, to coming to terms with first-time and unplanned fatherhood, right through to addressing major personal and relationship issues in order to increase child contact.
Survey and interview data confirmed that many professionals find it challenging to engage fathers and encounter multiple barriers (Fletcher, Silberberg & Baxter 2001). Although many professionals value father involvement and would like to engage more with fathers, it can be an ongoing struggle to simply get men in the door of services that are community, parenting and child-centred.
However, data gathered from fathers who participated in focus groups and interviews suggest that, for the fathers who do make contact and stay involved with service and program activities, their experiences are very positive. Further, men's partners and children, as well as service professionals, value the presence and involvement of men.
The findings are in line with results from other research that suggest fathers who do get involved in service activities tend to be fathers who are already engaged with their children and families (Raikes, Summers & roggman 2005). While there are challenges in recruiting fathers who have less involvement in family life, more research is needed to understand why fathers do not engage with services and explore what hard-to-reach groups of fathers would desire from services and programs.
In terms of the perceptions of fathers and fatherhood that inform service use and provision, the qualitative data suggests that the sense that fatherhood has changed in recent decades is prevalent among professionals and service users. The notion that fathers should be actively involved in child rearing was presented as a justification and explanation for father engagement with SFCS services and programs. Professionals also demonstrated a well-developed understanding of the benefits of father involvement. Many professionals stressed the importance of the father to the family, and in terms of child wellbeing. For some of the father participants, being an involved dad gave them the opportunity to provide their children with positive parenting experiences they felt they missed out on.
While there was a view that child and family services have a role in assisting fathers to address specific challenges and to support their efforts, there were definite barriers in doing so. Men were wary and 'put-off' by traditional child and family services because of the orientation towards mothers. Men's unwillingness to seek professional support was also identified as a barrier. However, when a partner or another service provider brought information about a program or service to their attention, and especially if another father recommended the service, engagement was more likely. At the highest level, sociocultural attitudes and values, particularly gender stereotypes and the extent to which men identify with and value the role of father, operate as a considerable barrier to father engagement.
While service providers acknowledged ongoing challenges in engagement, they had put in place a number of strategies to improve participation rates. These initiatives included:
- providing flexible hours of operation
- employing male facilitators
- developing father-specific services
- marketing services to men in male spaces
- using male-friendly language and advertisements (for example, addressing mothers and fathers in correspondence and advertising or using a gender neutral term like 'parents')
- creating service venues that men felt comfortable occupying.
Program managers and facilitators were also able to empathise with the experiences of men, understood their needs well, and had developed program content and structure that appeared to be producing tangible benefits for participants. These were discussed in terms of a reduction in social isolation, an increase in social support, and improvements in knowledge, skills, confidence, relationships and child wellbeing.
The study was also able to describe in more detail the elements and processes within services that were engaging to fathers. For example, fathers appeared to really connect with services where the facilitator was male and a father himself, who could be liked and trusted, and had encountered similar experiences and was willing to discuss them. Fathers were alienated by experts and a highly structured program format, and preferred informal peer discussions, which perhaps also included an activity such as woodworking or cooking, for example. Fathers did not attend services to be judged or put down, and gained more from a service when the positives were emphasised and the atmosphere was relaxed, warm and friendly. 'Male-friendly' surroundings also seemed to put men at ease and allowed them to benefit from what the program or service was offering. Most importantly, fathers wanted opportunities to talk with other fathers and hear their concerns and perspectives, and to make a few 'mates'.
While findings from the small sample of services that were specifically chosen for the intensive fieldwork were generally positive, the extent to which they can be generalised to other services and groups of men is unclear. There was a sense, however, that some of the issues that alienate men, particularly in relation to a mother-oriented service culture, may still pervade child and family services more generally. There may be value, therefore, in realigning services that have traditionally focused on women and children to be father-inclusive in accordance with the nine principles that were deemed to constitute best practice in the delivery of father-inclusive services that emerged from a forum on Father-inclusive Practice in Australia in 2005 under the auspice of The Family Action Centre at the University of Newcastle (The Family Action Centre 2005). These principles were father awareness, respect for fathers, equity and access, father strengths, practitioner strengths, advocacy and empowerment, partnership with fathers, recruitment and training, and research and evaluation.
There was also a sense in the current study that relatively few men that could potentially benefit from such services are actually receiving them, and that greater effort may be needed to develop additional fathering services and to publicise them widely and strategically. There was also a view that existing services may not cater to the specific needs of fathers from CALD backgrounds, and that individual services need to be set up accordingly. This accords with Fletcher, Silberberg and Baxter (2001), who argued that if men's access to family services is going to improve, then engaging men needs to be a higher, and planned for, priority on the agenda of service providers and staff.
4.1 Conclusion
At a time of shifting social mores and increasing expectation of father involvement in direct child care, child and family services have a definite role to play in supporting fathers to help them address shortcomings in skills, knowledge and personal functioning. Findings from the study suggest that while there is certainly room for improvement in the participation of fathers in SFCS programs and services, a reservoir of knowledge and enthusiasm exists about ways to successfully engage fathers and to ensure that contact with services leads to lasting benefits for fathers and their families.
The accounts of program staff and fathers provide some useful insights into how best to pursue the aim of increasing father involvement in child and family services. While the more maternal focus of many services may need to be addressed for fathers to become fully involved, services exclusive for fathers and men are likely to assist in the wider integration of fathers into available services. It appears that men are reached most successfully through referrals of those close to them, particularly other fathers. Unstructured, peer-oriented and non-judgemental program content, coordinated by an honest and skilled male facilitator in a male-friendly location, or during a focused activity, appears to connect and satisfy even the most circumspect of men.