I recently spoke at a conference organised by Mellow Parenting. Preparing that talk and attending their workshop on engaging fathers made me think about this question - is working with fathers different from working with mothers? Alan McMaster and Stewart McLean who led the afternoon workshop took the view that engaging fathers is just good whole family work. I absolutely agree and this could be a mantra for training on this issue. Respectful and empathetic communication is of course not a specific requirement for working with men. It is simply good practice in work with people. The same could be said for most of the skills and qualities what practitioners need to successfully engage men.
However, I think there are some particular features of work with fathers which practitioners need to be prepared for. I have recently done a process evaluation of Mellow Dads, which is a fairly intensive group intervention provided by Mellow Parenting. This group programme is designed for fathers with high levels of need and in practice many are referred by child protection services. The programme is based on improving parental attachment to children. One thing that has struck me in doing the evaluation is the extra effort needed to keep the group running. Considerable work was put in by facilitators, both before the group began and in-between sessions, just to get the men to the group. And then there were several events which clashed with group sessions, meaning the men had to miss some of the programme. These events might also crop up for mothers but they are perhaps less likely to. The clashes included attendance at criminal court (where men are more likely than women to be suspects) and appointments with other services which were not necessarily aware or supportive of the men’s attendance at a parenting group, perhaps again because this is simply not familiar territory, unlike a mother attending a parenting course.
Also, the group activities which involved more personal disclosures could be challenging. This is not surprising, as men’s socialisation does not typically involve sharing sensitive personal information with friends, whereas women’s friendships often do involve emotional bonding and the sharing of intimate experiences. I don't mean that men cannot talk on a personal level and in fact in the Mellow Dads group the facilitators were very skilled at encouraging them to talk. But we should reasonably expect this might be more difficult to achieve in a group of men than in a group of women. This is not gender stereotyping. It is simply acknowledging social reality.
So, in short, my answer to the question above has to be 'yes and no'.
However, I think there are some particular features of work with fathers which practitioners need to be prepared for. I have recently done a process evaluation of Mellow Dads, which is a fairly intensive group intervention provided by Mellow Parenting. This group programme is designed for fathers with high levels of need and in practice many are referred by child protection services. The programme is based on improving parental attachment to children. One thing that has struck me in doing the evaluation is the extra effort needed to keep the group running. Considerable work was put in by facilitators, both before the group began and in-between sessions, just to get the men to the group. And then there were several events which clashed with group sessions, meaning the men had to miss some of the programme. These events might also crop up for mothers but they are perhaps less likely to. The clashes included attendance at criminal court (where men are more likely than women to be suspects) and appointments with other services which were not necessarily aware or supportive of the men’s attendance at a parenting group, perhaps again because this is simply not familiar territory, unlike a mother attending a parenting course.
Also, the group activities which involved more personal disclosures could be challenging. This is not surprising, as men’s socialisation does not typically involve sharing sensitive personal information with friends, whereas women’s friendships often do involve emotional bonding and the sharing of intimate experiences. I don't mean that men cannot talk on a personal level and in fact in the Mellow Dads group the facilitators were very skilled at encouraging them to talk. But we should reasonably expect this might be more difficult to achieve in a group of men than in a group of women. This is not gender stereotyping. It is simply acknowledging social reality.
So, in short, my answer to the question above has to be 'yes and no'.