Improving Children’s Services Engagement of Fathers in Child Protection: Logic Model for an Organisational Development and Staff Training Intervention

Abstract

AbstractThere is a long-standing and ongoing problem of practice with at-risk families in child welfare work focusing primarily on mothers and failing to properly engage fathers. The article describes a child welfare innovation from the UK designed to tackle this issue—the ISAFE (Improving Safeguarding through Audited Father-Engagement) intervention, developed by The Fatherhood Institute and The Children’s Social Care Research and Development Centre (CASCADE) at Cardiff University and based on two previous separate interventions which had positive initial evaluations. ISAFE combines in-service social work practitioner training with other elements of organisational development to improve the engagement of fathers. Activities targeting organisational culture are case file audits, identification and training of team champions, and a webinar for service leaders. The practitioner training involves both awareness raising about the importance of engaging men and skills development via an introduction to motivational interviewing. ISAFE’s theory of change is summarised in the form of a logic model. Limitations of the intervention and its evaluation are discussed.