On Wednesday 21st October, we held our Dads Club session in the Riverbank Café at the People First Conference Centre. This session was held in partnership with NortHFutures, and was an opportunity to find out what local dads think about support available to dads in the area, and what they think about sharing their data with the NHS.
Dads Club provided a comfortable space to chat and let out any concerns amongst a group of other dads, with a tasty pie and mash meal included.
Many of the Dads expressed that there had been a lack of support from healthcare staff during and after the birth of their child or children:
“When children are very young, often the healthcare staff assume it’s only the mum’s role to look after the child. They didn’t ask me what I thought. If my partner challenged them over things, she was more likely to be listened to.”
“I think we need acknowledgement that traditional roles don’t really exist anymore and both parents can work, look after kids, take them to health check etc. The services need to understand this.”
“The health visitor only came once. I didn’t have anyone to go to. I was like a deer in the headlights.”
One dad told us: “I felt very isolated and alone and like I was fighting to carry on. I defended my wife and had to throw some healthcare visitors out of our house for being unreasonable. We’d had some miscarriages before. When we had our first son we were on pins a lot with worry.”
“I wasn’t able to voice my worries to anyone at the time.”
When asked about any peer support groups had accessed, it was clear there is a significant lack of dad-specific groups:
“There’s a big difference in the amount of mams groups to groups for dads.”
“I felt like that guy in Motherland (tv series) because all the groups were just women and I was the only man. I was a stay at home dad at the time so I did a lot of the childcare. I saw the mums bonding and it felt a bit awkward because I couldn’t really join in.”
“A lot of groups end up being mostly for the kids and there isn’t much for the parents.”
“I used to go to a group with my partner called Surestart, but I never went on my own because it was mostly only women there.”
“It was a bit of a dessert after Surestart shut down. There’s not been anything to replace it. It was like a one-stop shop for information. It didn’t matter about meeting any criteria either, it was for everyone.”
“During lockdown, a lot of social groups and services shut down.”
When asked about how they had managed their wellbeing as a dad, some participants told us about their hobbies and support networks:
“I started going to a running club to meet other people.”
“I have some trusted mates who are my support network.”
The dads shared that they had mixed feelings about sharing their data with the NHS:
“The NHS already has a lot of data on people, especially on my kids.”
“It’s not very clear where my data is being used and who can access it.”
“I think there is a bit of mistrust around NHS competence as an organisation. There have been data leaks I have heard of in the past.”
“I think a lot of people don’t realise you are automatically opted in to sharing your data and have to manually opt out if you don’t want to.”
It was very clear to the team that there is a need for some dad-specific peer support spaces, as the dads mentioned how they wanted to connect with others and talk about their experiences:
“It’s really hard to get dads to turn up to groups and stuff, but it’s really needed.”
“I want to connect with other dads. I don’t think there’s anywhere that does that.”
“There needs to be recognition that you need both mams and dads groups, and that they will be different.”
If you are a dad and would like to share your experience with the Healthwatch Cumberland team, you can contact us by email to: