• Fatherhood and Work-Family Policy
• Fathers, Parenting and Family Support
• Children, Families and Communities
• Children’s Services and Children’s Well-being

Fatherhood and Work-Family Policy
 
I am interested in all aspects of how fathers negotiate work-family life and in the interface of family policy and fatherhood. My study Working Fathers: Earning and Caring (2003) was the first national study of fathers’ work-family balance in Britain (read the report here). This investigation was influential in the development of a more father-friendly family policy in the UK. It provided new evidence on men’s changing family roles, use of flexible working and paternity leave before its formal introduction in the UK. This study was the foundation for further national and international policy analysis: O’Brien (2005) Shared Caring: Bringing Fathers into the Frame and a special Community, Work and Family journal issue on Fathers, Work and Family Life with Berit Brandth and Elin Kvande.

Since 2005, with Peter Moss, I have been producing an annual review of UK leave policies, including maternity, paternity leave and parental leave, for the International Network on Parental Leave Policy and Research (see Annual reviews). Understanding the links between child wellbeing and parental leave policies is of great interest to me.

For a list of recent and past publications on Fatherhood and Work-Family Policy please see here.

Fathers, Parenting and Family Support

Despite the greater appreciation of father involvement and higher expectations on men to be active in the upbringing of their children, fathers still tend to be missing in child and family support interventions. The legacy of ‘mother knows best’ continues to have a powerful impact on practice, as does the tendency to underplay men’s caring responsibilities in the family.

Awareness of this fathering support deficit led to my book on Fathers and Family Support Services: Promoting Involvement and Evaluating Impact (O’Brien, 2004).

This work built on the DFes funded Fathers in Sure Start research project, which examined the nature and extent fathers’ involvement in selected Sure Start programmes (carried out with Charlie Lewis, University of Lancaster) and the Nuffield funded Resettlement of imprisoned fathers into families in the United Kingdom project (with Lynda Clarke of the Centre for Population Studies, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Randal Day Brigham Young University, Utah, USA and Terri van Leeson Wayland Prison).

My earlier work on fathers has spanned studies of lone fathers, fathers in clinical and therapeutic contexts, and children’s perspectives on fathers. In the early 1980s with Lorna McKee (University of Aberdeen) and then Charlie Lewis (University of Lancaster) I was one of the key figures in the early wave of British research on fatherhood. Our books The Father Figure (1982) and Reassessing Fatherhood (1987) helped persuade researchers and theorists to incorporate fathers into their work.

For a list of recent and past publications on Fathers, Parenting and Family Support please see here.

Children, Families and Communities

Children and young people have unique insights on their families, neighbourhoods and wider communities. A significant strand of my work has examined children’s experiences of neighbourhood life in inner and outer London, new towns and more recently rural settings in Norfolk and Lincolnshire. This research has produced books Children and Families in Communities – Theory, Research and Policy (2006) with Barnes, Katz and Korbin and Children in the City: Home, Neighbourhood and the City (2003) with Christenson and papers on children’s spatial mobility, family and kinship from children’s perspectives, and policy innovations on child-friendly communities.

Understanding children’s local kin and neighbourhood environments in the context of class, ethnicity and faith groups is of great importance to my work Key research projects have been: Childhood, Urban Space and Citizenship: Child Sensitive Urban Regeneration in Child 5-15 ESRC Research Programme 1997-1999 with Deborah Jones, Michael Rustin, David Sloan and Jon Greenfield (Architect), an EU study Muslim families in the UK, Denmark and Belgium with Fatima Husain, and Revisiting family and Kinship in East London- a study of young people in Barking and Dagenham (with Deborah Jones).

For a list of recent and past publications on Children, Families and Communities please see here.

Children’s Services and Children’s Well-being

An important part of my research at UEA’s Centre for Research on the Child and Family is working in multi-disciplinary teams, from economics, education, environmental sciences, law, management, medicine, social work and psychology, to build a robust base of evidence for the improvement of services for children and families. Projects have included: the national evaluation of Children’s Trust Pathfinders (First Report 2004; Second Report 2005; Final Report 2007) regional evaluations of Children’s Fund (2003-8), a national study of Fathers in Sure Startprogrammes (2002-3) and a national study of School based Breakfast Clubs (2001-2).

For a list of recent and past publications on Children’s Services and Children’s Well-being please see here.

Current PhD students

Michela Franceschelli - "Being Young, British and Muslim: Pathways to faith and citizenship within Muslim families" (ESRC CASE Research studentship award with the Family and Parenting Institute)

Kamena Henshaw - "A comparative study of the role of family meals in adolescence: family routine, rituals, protection and risk"

Previous PhD Students

• Laura Biggart - "Fathers and work family life: the relative influence of dispositional and organisational factors"
• Gillian Holt - "Labour market choices and family life: enabling parental investment in children and work"
• Joanne Kellett - "Children’s needs and rights in post-separation contact disputes"
• Lorraine Munro - "The Commissioning of Foster Care in Partnership with Independent Providers"

Research supervision
[If you are interested in completing a research degree in the areas outlined above, please click here]

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Indicative Publications

O'Brien, M. (2009). Fathers, Parental Leave Policies and Infant Quality of Life: International Perspectives and Policy Impact. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Vol. 624, 190-213.

O’Brien, M., Bachmann, M. O., Thoburn, J., Jones, N., Husbands, C., Shreeve, A., Reading, R., Watson, J., Brandon, M., Mugford, M. and the National Evaluation of Children’s Trusts Team (2009). Do integrated children’s services improve children’s outcomes? Evidence from England’s Children’s Trust Pathfinders. Children and Society, Vol. 23 (5), 315-392.

Millings, A., Walsh, J., Hepper, E., & O’Brien, M. (Accepted). Good partner, good parent: Caregiving mediates the link between romantic attachment and parenting style. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Biggart, L. & O'Brien, M. (2010). UK Fathers’ long work hours: Career stage or fatherhood? Journal of Fathering, Volume 8, 341-361.

BSc Psychology
Year 2 Child in Society
Year 3 Families: Psychosocial perspectives
Year 3 Final Year research project supervision

MA Child and Family Research
Families: Psychosocial perspectives
Research project supervision