Fathers’ involvement in perinatal care and engagement in parenting enhances children’s wellbeing. It also contributes to the development of healthy relationships and is associated with a reduced likelihood of violence. On the other hand, research highlights that becoming a father implies also risks for men to use violence against their partners, due to challenging situations in dealing with new roles and circumstances.

Therefore, Fathers Rock (Fathers’ engagement in the Role Of Care Keeping mothers and children safe) focuses on the prevention of gender-based violence of men who are (becoming) fathers through the collaboration with key services (perinatal services, birth pathways, daycares, health services and hospitals, nurseries).

Fathers Rock aims to

• improve the social and emotional capacity of men who are (becoming) fathers and their skills in dealing with parenting and their (new) role as fathers
• increase the engagement of key public institutions on recognising and promoting the caring role of men to promote gender equality, child wellbeing and safeguarding, and prevention of domestic violence
• enhance the skills of services to involve and support men in parenting to minimise the risk of violence and to increase accountability
• improve the capacity of frontline professionals to prevent domestic violence and  identify risk indicators and early critical signs of domestic violence
• enable professionals to use available resources and paths for referral of domestic violence, and to motivate men to accountability

The Fathers Rock team will:

• Develop and deliver a capacity-building programme for frontline services to identify and refer domestic violence
• Develop and implement a programme for the engagement of fathers and the work on caring masculinities codesigned with perinatal and early childhood professionals
• Develop a multiagency intervention model and outline institutional recommendations for prevention of gender-based violence and child safeguarding through the work with men around fatherhood 

Fathers Rock model will be developed in English, Spanish, Italian and German, tested in Spain, Italy and Austria

• Capacity building programme for frontline professionals
• Fathers group education programme 
• Fathers Rock awareness raising cards for men
• Fathers Rock institutional leaflets: English | German | Spanish | Italian | Catalan
• Fathers Rock leaflets for men who need help: English | German | Spanish | Italian | Catalan
• Multiagency cooperation model

The Fathers Rock project is developed by an international, interdisciplinary team consisting of:

• Fundación Blanquerna, research and education organisation within the Faculty of Psychology, Education and Sports Sciences from Ramon Llull University, Spain
• Conexus, Associació CONEXUS Atenció, Formació i Investigació Psicosocials, no-profit NGO with GBV its main fields of expertise and activity, offering intervention programmes for women and children, and for male perpetrators, Spain
• CAM, Centro di Ascolto Uomini Maltrattanti Onlus, NGO and perpetrator programme focussing on the intervention in violence against women and children by promoting the work with men who act violently in emotional relationships, Italy
• Verein für Männer- und Geschlechterthemen Steiermark, the Association for Men and Gender Issues Styria is providing research and education on Caring Masculinities and violence prevention, gender-reflecting work with men and boys on violence prevention, masculinities, diversity and intersectionality, Austria
• WWP EN, the European Network for the Work with Perpetrators of Domestic Violence, Germany and Europe

An external Advisory Board will supervise and support the Team. The board consists of:

• Marianne Hester, Affiliated Professor and leading researcher of gender-based violence at the University of Gothenburg, and Chair in Gender, Violence & International Policy at School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol
• Annina Lubbock, Senior Technical Adviser on Gender and Poverty Targeting, expert in engagement of regional and national level institutions around gender equality and mainstreaming in multilateral cooperation
• Andrea Santoro, Chair of Cerchio degli Uomini and Giardino dei Padri for the engagement with fatherhood with special focus on guidance to men who are (becoming) fathers, conscious parenting and the work on masculinity

Launch of Project March 2022

EN | IT | ES | CA | DE

Engaging men in the first thousand days (Italian)

Parent European Manual - Promotion, Awareness Raising, and Engagement of Men in Nurture Transformations

State of the World's Fathers

The role of men in gender equality

Preventing and address intimate violence when engaging dads 

Responding to intimate partner violence and sexual violence against women - WHO clinical and policy guidelines

Effective multiagency cooperation for preventing and combating domestic violence

Guide for responsible, active and conscious paternity (Spanish)

Gender equality and the socio economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic

Occurrence and impact of negative behaviour, including domestic violence and abuse, in men attending UK primary care health clinics

Berta Vall - FPCEE Blanquerna, Ramon Llull University - bertavc(at)blanquerna.url.edu 

Dimitra Mintsidis – WWP European Network – d.mintsidis(at)work-with-perpetrators.eu