transforming fatherhood: transforming children’s lives

Annual Report2006-2007

The small print

Our registered address:9 Nevill StreetAbergavenny, NP7 5AA

But we all work from home (London, Northampton, Cardiff, Hebden Bridge, Exeter, Crickhowell) and we meet regularly in Birmingham. Our stores, sales, IT and accounts are administered in Abergavenny.

Our charity number: 1075104Our limited company number: 3709549

Our phone number: 0845 634 1328

Our website: www.fathersdirect.com – this is our “resource library” for professionals working with families

The Trustees

Dame Julie Mellor – our Chair. Former Chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission, now partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Professor Michael Lamb, Professor of Psychology, Cambridge University. World’s leading expert on role of fathers in children’s development.

Carolyn Unsted, Principal School Improvement Officer, Lewisham Council.

Dr Bronwen Cohen CBE, Chief Executive of Children in Scotland.

Melvyn Davis, leading expert in work with young black men.

Lisa Harker, top level advisor to Government on child poverty.

The team

Staff

David Bartlett manages our training and consultancy work.

Tom Beardshaw has been developing the DAD information service.

Adrienne Burgess has done a major review of research, and also writes and does training.

Simon Craft-Stanley, who joined us in the autumn, has been organising all our publications.

Kathy Jones has been managing several projects, and also does training.

Duncan Fisher is the CEO.

Contractors

Karen Jones does our books and manages our database.Rachel and Ann at Standby do all our sales and mailings.Anthony Toon does our IT and has been setting up a new server.Jeremy Davis writes for us.

What we stand for

We base our work on research in three fields:

the impact of fatherhood on child development – whether positive or negative

the effectiveness of working with fathers to bring about more positive outcomes for children

the opinions of mothers, fathers and children in today’s society

We do not represent fathers. We do not advocate fathers’ rights.

We believe in gender equality and the interdependence of women and men in bringing this about – in particular the need for women and men to share caring roles and the benefits this brings to boys and girls in widening their horizons.

The need that we address

Father-child relationships at all stages in a child’s life have profound life-long impacts on children, positive and negative. Outcomes for vulnerable children are particularly affected by their relationship with their father.

Working with fathers works for children – but only if the interventions are designed with gender awareness.

Services for fathers are generally based on the opposite assumption: that fatherhood is an optional significant “add on” for children (unlike motherhood, which is essential). The relationship of vulnerable children with their fathers is particularly lacking in support and protection.

Fathers Direct exists to change policy and services and align them with evidence instead of unfounded beliefs.

Duncan, CEO, writes about the organisation:

We started with absolutely nothing but an idea in 1999, and now:

A robust Board of Trustees – expert, well-connected, active in its governance role.

A gifted team, now completely re-organised (with a new Manager of Operations arriving in June 2007).

A new and thoroughly prepared 5-year plan starting April 2007.

Secure unrestricted reserves sufficient to cover our risks.

Sales to local authorities on the increase – advance bookings in March 2007 for 2007/2008 equalling the bookings for all of 2006/2007.

The 2007 Budget announced increased spending on engaging with fathers and mentions Fathers Direct: a direct result of influencing at the highest level of Government.

Team members write about our projects:

David: The first family services have started the process of obtaining the Fatherhood Quality Mark, which was referred to in the Treasury’s Budget Report 2007.Among many consultancy contracts the following are highlights: Government’s Parent-School Advisor Programme and Nurse-Family Partnership pilots; joint conference with Community Care magazine on working with men in social care. We found 4 local authorities to co-finance a pilot programme for young new fathers developed in the US, Hit the Ground Crawling. We forged a new strategic partnership with Women’s Aid and Respect to develop programmes for violent fathers.We have contributed to the Government’s Families Review, looking at services for the most excluded and at-risk families.We have developed partnership with Together 4 Children in helping early years services implement new Government policy.

Team members write about our projects:

Adrienne: I wrote a 100 page review of international research as the foundation for all our work – sponsored by BT, Lloyds TSB and the Tudor Trust. We maintained fresh content on the website and sent on average one email a month to our email address list of 7000.

Simon: We sold 10,000 copies of the DAD Pack, which services can give to fathers. We printed 10,000 more. We wrote and published:

• A new core publication, Toolkit for Father-Inclusive Practice.• A guide for maternity services on engaging with fathers.• Three guides on working with Muslim fathers, with African-Caribbean fathers and fathers in families with drug problems.• Two editions of Fatherwork Magazine, one on Children’s centres and one on domestic violence.

Team members write about our projects:

Tom: We developed the DAD information service ready for launch in 2007-2008 – a website (www.dad.info), DAD cards for maternity services, and an email and mobile phone text information service.

Kathy: We produced materials for maternity and children’s services to give to ethnic minority fathers – Polish, Muslim, African-Caribbean, Somalian and devised a training module for student midwives. We worked in partnership with other organisations to examine research Black and Muslim fatherhood, organising a conference on Muslim fatherhood.We trained 100 voluntary sector staff on free courses in London to engage fathers in different communities.

Team members write about our projects:

Duncan: We produced recommendations for the Comprehensive Spending Review, in discussion with ministers in education, health, work & pensions and criminal justice. The 2007 Budget announced new funding for this work and mentioned Fathers Direct – a direct result of our work. The new parent policies of Department for Education & Skills are extremely explicit about fathers, quoting from our work. The Department of Health published new maternity policy with extensive references to fathers – a direct result of our work. The Government White Paper on child maintenance included all our main proposals, following intensive discussions with ministers. Extensive input into the Conservative Social Justice Commission, including serving on one of the enquiry panels.Continued work with Children in Scotland and Children in Wales.

Our moneyThe full accounts are in the “about us” section on our website.

Balance sheet

This year Last yearFixed assetsEquipment £- £-

Current assetsDebtors £ 96,859 £ 49,468Cash/bank £222,436 £144,525

£319,295 £193,993

Current liabilitiesCreditors £232,805 - £117,706 -

Net assets £ 86,490 £ 77,706

Unrestricted £ 56,974 £ 65,271Restricted £ 29,516 £ 12,435

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Our moneyThe full accounts are in the “about us” section on our website.

Profit & lossThis year Last year

Our incomeGrants & sponsorship- Dept for Education & Skills £395,100 £406,050- Big Lottery Fund £ 83,179 £ 45,450- Department of Health £ 29,000 £ 30,000- London Development Trust £ 25,000- BT £ 10,000 £ 20,000- Lloyds TSB £ 10,000 £ 25,000- other £ 6,382 £ 52,590Sales £125,766 £123,508Other £ 4,187 £ 1,494

£688,614 £704,092Our expenditureDirect costs of all projects £258,470 £309,268Employment costs £265,836 £277,139Admin, travel, coms, etc. £155,524 £ 70,743

£679,830 £657,150

Net income £ 8,784 £ 46,942