Stronger Families is now accepting referrals for the Caring Dads program. Please contact us direct to discuss.
Background.
Over 2.9 million boys and girls in Australia have witnessed family and domestic violence against a parent before age 15.
35% of women world wide have experienced intimate partner violence and 7% of women in Australia hospitalized for family and domestic violence related assaults were pregnant.
56% of homeless youth in Australia had to leave home due to family and domestic violence.
Family and domestic violence has a measurable and substantial association with caregiver and family functioning which in turn has a substantial association with child health and behavior.
Caring Dads.
Caring Dads is devoted to ensuring the safety and well-being of some of our communities’ most vulnerable children through working with fathers (including biological, step, and common-law) who have been abusive, neglectful, or violent in their families or who are deemed to be at high-risk for these behaviors. There are three components to the Caring Dads program:
• a seventeen-week manualized group intervention program for men;
• systematic outreach to children’s mothers; and
• coordinated case management to ensure that child safety and well-being is enhanced as a result of fathers’ involvement in intervention.
Group intervention
The group component of Caring Dads combines elements of parenting, fathering and child protection practice to enhance the safety and well-being of children.
Program principles emphasize the need to:
enhance men’s motivation
promote child-centered fathering,
address men’s ability to engage in respectful, non-abusive co-parenting with children’s mothers,
recognize that children’s experience of trauma will impact the rate of possible change, and
work collaboratively with other service providers to ensure that children benefit (and are not unintentionally harmed) as a result of father’s participation in intervention.
A typical group usually runs for 2 hours, one night a week, for 17 weeks. There are usually between 10 and 15 men registered in each group. Groups may only be led by accredited Caring Dads facilitators.
Family Safety
This component involves:
Systematic outreach to mothers to ensure safety and freedom from coercion.
Contact with children’s mothers by devoted program staff or by those working in partnership to ensure women are informed about the program.
Collaboration between professionals and with women to anticipate and work to avoid potential unintended negative consequences of men’s involvement in intervention.
Provision of referral and safety planning to children’s mothers, as necessary.
Case management
This component is a commitment to working collaboratively to support children and establishes:
A clear community-based model for accountability to ensure that child safety and well-being is enhanced as a result of fathers’ involvement in intervention.
Open communication between Caring Dads program and other professionals working to ensure the safety and well-being of members of the family.
Joint meetings and planning in response to ongoing or rising risk presented by father.