Conference helps dads be better dads

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This article was published 03/03/2017 (3147 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Front-line social service workers wrapped up a sold-out parenting conference Thursday that focused on everything about being a dad.

The Second Canadian National Fatherhood Conference brought together 175 clinicians, social services and front-line workers as well as non-profit agency staff from across Canada to Winnipeg Tuesday and Wednesday at Canad Inns Polo Park.

Carmen Paterson-Payne, provincial co-ordinator for Dad Central Manitoba, said Winnipeg hosted the event after agencies and clinicians here noticed men showing up and asking for parenting advice in growing numbers.

“We’re seeing more dads come to our groups,” Paterson-Payne said.

Parenting skills were so popular, Paterson-Payne organized a total of six workshops just for dads last year in her day job as provincial co-ordinator of Nobody’s Perfect, a parenting program sponsored as a community resource by the Public Health Agency of Canada.

“People are hungry for this in Manitoba,” Paterson-Payne said.

“Families are changing. Dads are taking on a more active role as parents. Up to now, the focus for many (agencies) was on mothers, but we recognize fathers also play an equal role in healthy parenting. There’s a shift now to help the fathers,” she said.

Gary Richards, a cultural support worker in Regina with All Nations Hope Network, said the conference allowed him to find common ground on a fundamental indigenous principle of family life; that it truly takes a village to raise a child.

“The viewpoint where I come from is this conference is about breaking down the dynamics of the nuclear family and how it doesn’t work,” said Richards, a residential school survivor.

As part of his tool kit, Richard uses Signs of Your Identity, a 2016 award-winning collection of photographs sponsored by the Pulitzer Centre on Crisis Reporting and created by London-based photographer Daniella Zalcman.

The collection of multiple exposures chronicles the effects of the schools on 25 survivors, including Richards.

Brian Russell, one of the keynote speakers and the provincial co-ordinator of Dad Central Ontario, said professionals have spotted a need for parenting skills for dads and they’re eager to learn strategies to use in their work at a community level

“We’re talking about healthy childhood development,” Russell said.

“It’s about how can I talk to these guys, so that I can actually help them. People, they are engaging with fathers and it’s not an easy thing to do. There are vulnerable situations that make it hard for a dad to be a good dad and this is about how to help them communicate with their kids.”

This year’s conference encouraged discussions about fathers at risk, groups that agencies and professionals have identified as vulnerable, including young dads, immigrant and newcomer dads, aboriginal dads and incarcerated dads.

“Think of it as these fathers being parents and understanding that everyone can go through hardships and that’s why it’s so important to make sure we have the resources to help dads,” said Tanis Shanks, a co-ordinator with the non-profit health child development agency in Saskatoon, the Saskatchewan Prevention Institute.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca