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Canadian fathers are taking more time off work to be at home caring for children, according to data from Statistics Canada. Specifically:
• the number of stay-home fathers has risen by 50% in the past ten years
• the number of fathers taking paid paternal leave after a birth or adoption has increased 900% since 2001
• the average number of days of work missed for family reasons by Canadian fathers of preschoolers tripled between 1997 and 2007
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FIRA’s John Hoffman has been asked to be a secondary investigator on a new neuroscience study to be conducted at York University’s Milton and Ethel Harris Research Initiative (MEHRI). The study, led by Jim Stieben, director of MEHRI’s Neuroscience Group, will investigate the relationship between paternal empathy and children’s development of self-regulation. Self-regulation is increasingly seen as a crucial aspect of optimal child development and mental health.
Stieben and his team will use dense-array EEG electrode sensor nets to track brain activity in fathers, mothers and children as the parents watch their children play an emotion inducing computer game. This is an extension and further development of Stieben’s previous research involving mothers and children. The new study will be the first time fathers have been included in these procedures.
Hoffman’s role will be to ensure that knowledge from father involvement research, particularly research about influence of mothers on father involvement and the nature of father/child relationships, will be incorporated into the design of the study.
“Social workers need to re-conceptualize child welfare practice from its present ‘genderneutral’ construct, with its implicit focus on mothers, to become father inclusive,” argues Christopher Walmsley, of Thompson Rivers University, in a paper called Fathers and the Welfare System.
Walmsley’s paper, available for download from the website of the Child and Youth Research Network, comes out of the work of the Fathering and Child Welfare Research Group situated at the University of Victoria School of Social Work. Walmsley pulls together data from the group’s work and other research to document the ways in which many child protection workers tend to discount any value a father might have to his family and children, and that they make only minimal efforts to contact or work with fathers in families involved in the child welfare system.
Walmsley argues that if child welfare agencies begin to “see” fathers, and provide policy and practice guidance to their staff about engaging with fathers, they will reduce the risk of harm to children and mothers in the long term. He also suggests that social workers who create a space for fathers to reflect on their behaviour in intimate relationships and heal from their traumas will enable men to become more positively involved with their children.
To read the full paper click here.
The members of the Fathering and Child Welfare Research Group are Leslie Brown, Marilyn Callahan, Lena Dominelli, Susan Strega and Christopher Walmsley
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John Hoffman has been appointed Communications Director for FIRA. John has been a member of FIRA’s Steering Committee since the organization’s inception and has worked in a communications role since 2007, writing and organizing material of FIRA’s website and handling FIRA E-bulleitins In his new role John will now serve as the primary day-to-day contact for FIRA. Please direct all communications to John’s e-mail address: jhoffman@cogeco.ca
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