davidv's blog

Children North East and the Beatrice Webb Memorial Trust national conference on Child Poverty at the Sage Gateshead on 23rd November 2011.

The conference will include the first showing of an exhibition by children and young people, illustrating how they see child poverty in the North East Region in 2011. Over 1200 children and young people have so far taken part.

The focus of the day will be to collectively find solutions and generate 120 actions to end child poverty.
Follow the conference on twitter using the hashtag #CNEconf.

Tomorrow, I will be heading to Westminster to pass on the views of North East children, mums and dads to the Labour Party’s education policy advisory group.

Parents are vitally important to children's learning and development, yet many parents, and this is especially true for fathers and male carers feel disengaged from their child's learning in school.

FATHERS and children are invited to a military-themed family fun event this Saturday.

The fun day will be held at Durham Light Infantry (DLI) Museum, in Aykley Heads, Durham City, as part of the museum%u2019s Courageous Restraint: 3 Rifles in Afghanistan programme.

It will include people dressed as soldiers from throughout the ages, military vehicles and displays from various regiments.

Visitors will be able to try camouflage and field cooking with RAF Cadets.

Great to see the launch of National Dads Matter week.

Wondering if there is anyone out there who was part of the first North East Fatherhood Week launched by Fathers Plus back in 2006.

We took lots of family workers and fatherhood specialists and went out on the streets and malls of the North East and spoke to thousands of dads and mums.

How do you think things have changed for fathers in your service or your community, or even your family since 2006?

Would love to hear from you

Including Fathers and Male Carers in Services: Making it Sustainable

Thanks to everyone who made the conference in York this week such a great success. It was good to see so many friends and colleagues together and to see such a broad spectrum of support for the work we are continuing to develop to include fathers and male carers in services.

I thought it was interesting to see the research around health inequalities and the impact of disengagement on the well being of boys and young men and the costs this places on society.

Thanks to everyone who helped make the Including Men in Schools Conference on 14th June 2010 such a great day.

Looking forward to the BBC4 Season on fatherhood.

A century of fatherhood, the biology of dads and disappearing dads are some of the programmes scheduled. Wonder what they will have to say about some of the issues we face every day - such as trying to ensure that dads as well as mums are supported in their roles as care givers by family services.

From the historical perspective this ties in nicely with the Family Man through the Ages programme developed by Fathers Plus and the NE Museums Hub.

From the BBC4 website - follow the link below to find out more.

Great to see some of the work of the Dads Transitions Programme in County Durham getting recognition by the BBC. You can follow the link to watch the video.

The project has been running for two years and has supported dads, granddads and other carers to get involved in their children's learning at school.

The children and the dads are enjoying it and teaching staff at the school are noticing a positive difference in the children.

Thanks to Chantalle Edmunds at BBC Tees for this piece.

--------------------------------

Children North East Fathers Plus in partnership with The North East Regional Museums Hub have developed a new exciting website that looks at how dads and family men have lived throughout history.

The Family Man Schools outreach programme has now been running for six months and is very popular with dads, granddads, family men and their children. Schools and teaching staff are also experiencing the benefit of having family men involved in their children's learning.

Richard Moss of the BBC's Politics Show hosts a debate with founder of Kids Company and social campaigner Camila Batmanghelidjh, writer and journalist Beatrix Campbell, Assistant Bishop of Newcastle Paul Richardson and Roger Olley of Children North-East as they argue over the place of men in today's and tomorrow's world.

Follow the link below to hear the debate on BBC iplayer