North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has called for the next Welsh Government to champion the important role of fathers in modern family life.
In the Assembly Chamber this week, Mr Isherwood, a father of six, referred to the fact that in Scotland, it’s ‘Year of the Dad’, organised in partnership with the Scottish Government and Fathers Network Scotland to highlight the positive contribution fathers make to children, families and society, and asked the Minister for Communities and Tackling Poverty, Lesley Griffiths AM, how she would work, if in Welsh Government after the next election, to support the greater inclusion of fathers in a positive role in the lives of their children, learning from the Scottish experience by having a year of the Dad in Wales.
Mr Isherwood also asked the Minister what action she would take to help fathers be more ‘hand-on’ in their parenting.
He said: “(the Charity) FNF Both Parents Matter Cymru have worked with 4Children, the UK charity all about children and families, to facilitate Dads’ focus groups to inform their inquiry into families, and their resulting 4Children report, ‘Britain’s Families: Thriving or Surviving?’, says that fathers can struggle to be as hands-on in their parenting. How, therefore, do you respond to their recommendations that all family services should be welcoming to fathers, when the evidence from Wales suggested otherwise, and that we need a wider public campaign to emphasise the important role of fathers in modern family life?”
“As one Welsh parents said in the report: ‘Everything is focused on the mothers, dads are left in the background. From the midwives, health visitors, dads get left in the dark. Everything concentrates on the mother.’
“Mother, of course, is crucial, but so is Dad. Given that the proportion of children being taken into care in Wales has been rising and the proportion of children taken into care in England is significantly lower, how do you respond to the statement by the Children’s Commissioner for Wales that contributing factors could be less-effective family support services, more risk-averse professionals and legal teams, and higher child poverty levels, and that the Welsh Government’s emphasis on reducing looked-after children numbers must be accompanied by effective support for children and their families, which, of course, means both parents?”
The Minister said there is a wide-range of schemes in Wales to support families and that they “do support both parents’
Mr Isherwood added: “Perhaps she might actually learn something if she looked to what Scotland are doing, read the key report I referred to and recognised that the growth in children being taken into care in Wales is a betrayal.”