Brighter Futures South West
The Millfields Trust
HQ Business Centre
237 Union Street
Stonehouse
Plymouth
PL1 3HQ
Mob: 07779 349557

Caring Dads Program

General Suitability Criteria for Caring Dads Programme (Quick Guide)

Caring Dads is targeted at those who are assessed as being at a moderate to high risk in terms of potential risk of harm, and further offending and whose history (but not necessarily convictions) reveals a pattern of abusive and neglectful fathering, including assaulting their partner or ex-partners. This behaviour may or may not be increasing in severity or frequency.   The programme seeks to target attitudes and cognitive distortions that underpin abusive behaviours and condone and support abusive fathering, including spousal assault.

Caring Dads is not an alternative to a Domestic Violence and Abuse Perpetrator Programme.

People who complete a Domestic Violence and Abuse Perpetrator Programme often then move on to complete the Caring Dads Programme.

The Caring Dads Programme has been developed to address men who:

• Have physically and emotionally abused their children
• Are at risk of maltreating their children
• Have an over-bearing, controlling style of interacting with their children
• Alternatively are under-involved and distant with their children
• Have physically or emotionally abused children’s mothers
• Have regular contact with their children
• Have some motivation to address their behaviour and abide by the programmes rules and processes
• Are still living with their children or/
• Have abandoned one or more child and moved onto another family and are at-risk of abandoning other children

Broadly speaking these will mainly be men who have:

• perpetrated domestic abuse in the home and whose parenting might be described as parent- rather than child-centred

• In some cases there may not be a readily identifiable history of abuse against the children’s mother.

• Care should be taken to ensure that men are not referred to Caring Dads as a shorter alternative to Community Domestic Abuse Programmes

• The ideal scenario would be that men attend both Caring Dads and a perpetrator program

• Violent men who have perpetrated more severe forms of violence (either partner abuse or child maltreatment) and who still have contact with children should be the ones most likely to receive both Caring Dads and perpetrator programmes.

·         Both programs ultimately aim to protect the victims of men’s abusive behaviours (primarily women in the case of the perpetrator programs, women and children in the case of Caring Dads).

·         Both have a primary focus on men’s accountability for past harm and on changing cognitive risk factors for future violence.

·         Both use similar tools (i.e. cognitive behavioural interventions) to promote change and both involve collaborations with other professionals to better manage the risk men pose to their families.