History

Fathers Plus came about because of the vision and drive of the then Director of Children North East Joy Higginson. Joy described the incident that sparked her involvement in father work in a forward to a report that she wrote in 1997

“After a heavy afternoon in a multi-agency meeting to consider the lessons to be learnt from the non-accidental death of a child, I was about to leave the office when I noticed a man and a young girl walking hand in hand, turning into the back lane behind the office. My immediate reaction was one of suspicion and conjecture – where were they going? Why was she with him? Was she happy to be there? There was nothing to indicate that there was a problem, but after spending a few hours on weighty child protection matters, I was still in that mode of thinking.

That chance observation shocked me and I started thinking more deeply about how we see fathers. I started to talk more widely about the issue with colleagues and met with a wide variety of responses. I was put in touch with ‘Canny Lads’ project in Longbenton, North Tyneside and ‘A Dads Place’ in Newcastle and a vision began to emerge of a project that would work with fathers and also with colleagues in order to encourage the involvement of fathers in services for children and families."

From that vision the Children North East ‘Fathers Plus Project’ was born on the 20th October 1997 and its geographic focus was the whole of Tyne and Wear. Over the subsequent years it has grown in substance, structure and reach. It was renamed the ‘Fathers Plus Service’ in 2007 and it now delivers services and consultancy across the United Kingdom.

The original project aims, set in 1997, were

• To explore different methods of supporting and empowering fathers.
• To establish a network of people who have an interest in and/or experience in working with fathers as a way of pooling expertise and exchanging information and contacts.
• To ensure that the father’s role is included as an equal and valued parent in the planning and delivery of public services for children and families.
• To take an action research approach to the project ensuring the evaluation of all project activities and that the lessons learned are disseminated widely in a range of academic publications and popular media.

Fathers Plus has stayed true to those aims and has now developed a significant reputation as one of the foremost practice based father work services in the UK.