Families Need Fathers

For thoughtful child sponsors

Families Need Fathers (FNF) [1] is a registered UK charity, founded in 1974, which provides information and support to parents, including unmarried parents, of either sex. FNF is chiefly concerned with the problems of maintaining a child's relationship with both parents during and after family breakdown, and has acquired over 10,000 members in its 30-year history.

The group's volunteer members offer advice to parents, which aims to be child-centred. Hence the advice here originally worked out by children who took part in a divorce survival class:

Don't ask us what happened while with the other parent
Don't ask us to keep secrets
Don't put us in a position where we have to tell lies
Don't ask us to take sides
Don't take out your anger on us
Don't get into competition with one another
Do allow us to love both parents without being got at by either
Don't ask us to choose between you

Table of contents

1 Research
2 Other Organisations in this field
3 See also
4 External links

Research

Joseph Rowntree Foundation
- Together and apart: Children and parents experiencing separation and divorce
Economic & Social Research Council
- Fathers' involvement is crucial
- Life after divorce: why we should consider the lives of the children in a wider context
Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Oxford
- Distress among children whose separated or divorced parents cannot agree arrangements for them, British Journal of Social Work, 33, 227-238, Bream, V. & Buchanan, A., 2003
- Promoting Children's Emotional Well-being - Messages from Research (Ann Buchanan and Barbara Hudson)
Centre for Research into Parenting and Children, University of Oxford
The Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime (ESYTC)
- TeachersÃÂÃÂ Ratings of Behaviour (for children in various family circumstances)
Lancaster University (Charlie Lewis)