Caring Dads
In Australia, there are few services helping men who have used violence that specifically focus on improving parenting practices. Caring Dads is Australia's first evidence-based behaviour-change programs helping fathers who have used violence to improve their relationship with their children. Caring Dads is a voluntary program, delivered by highly skilled practitioners.
About The Program
The Caring Dads program comprises:
✔ A 17-session, empirically-based group-parenting intervention for fathers
✔ Systematic outreach to mothers to ensure their safety and freedom from coercion
✔ Ongoing, collaborative case management of fathers with existing service providers and other professionals involved with fathers’ families.
Program Principles
✔ Enhance fathers’ motivation to change their behaviours
✔ Promote child-centred fathering
✔ Address fathers’ ability to engage in respectful, non-abusive parenting with the mothers of their children
✔ Recognize that children’s experiences of trauma will impact their development
✔ Work collaboratively with other service providers to ensure that the child's best interest remain paramount, while engaging perpetrators of harm
Program Goals
✔ To develop sufficient trust and motivation to engage men in the process of examining their fathering
✔ To increase fathers’ awareness and application of child-centred fathering
✔ To increase fathers’ awareness of, and responsibility for, abusive and neglectful fathering and the impact of this on their children
✔ To rebuild trust with children and plan for the future.
Helping Dads do better so children and partners are safer