Supporting the Governments new Fathers & Men's Health Strategy - Somerset Safeguarding Children Partnership

SSCP

On the 1st July, the SSCP’s Training Manager, Steve Macabee, was invited to attend Parliament to take part in a Government round table debate on how best to support new fathers and provide insights into Somerset’s “Supporting New Fathers” project, lead by Dr. Jo Nicholl.

The event, hosted by Darren Paffey MP and organised by The Fatherhood Institute heard from experts around the country, alongside the Dept. for Health & Social Care and MP’s with an interest in dads, discussing the research and initiatives to support new fathers, including:

👏 Universal health checks for dads
👏 Fatherhood Champions training
👏 Linking of fathers’ and babies’ health records
👏 Stronger requirements for service commissioning
👏 Aligning NHS support with improved parental leave

It was an exciting day, which coincided with the launch of the debate in Parliament to increase Paternity Leave to 6 weeks, demonstrating that positive change is on it’s way!

Have your say on the Men’s Health Strategy

To find out more about the day, check out Steve’s Vlog:

Find out more about the ‘Looking Out for Dad’ Campaign by The Fatherhood Institute

Thank you so much to the Fatherhood Institute and to the MPs who took the time to be part of the debate. There were some really inspirational people sitting within the room and amazing hearing some of the initiatives taking place around the country. A lot of it wasn’t rocket science and often it can be very simple changes that make a huge difference, and although this isn’t a solution to solving the issue of poor service engagement with fathers, this one small fragment of change can be part of a much larger shift in thinking and in practice.

Steve Macabee – SSCP’s Training Manager