From the ‘fathers team’ at CRCF, Georgia Philip in particular, has been working hard to build the reputation and impact from the two Nuffield funded studies on fathers in child protection and local authority care proceedings. These are the 2017 study, Counting Fathers In and the 2021 study, Up Against It.
How’s Your Father? Using research and theatre to change conversations about fatherhood and family services.
‘How’s Your Father?’ (HYF) is an innovative, creative, and powerful approach to developing professional practice with men and with fathers. The project combines academic research, by Dr Georgia Philip and colleagues from UEA and Lancaster University, with theatre in the applied setting of social work practice. It uses live theatre to communicate research findings and directly engage audiences with key messages. HYF consists of an ensemble theatre show and supporting professional development activities. The most recent phase of this work ran from January 2023 to January 2024 and involved working in partnership with Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex Children’s Services to take live performances and related training workshops directly to practitioner audiences, in the workplace.
HYF is a collaboration between Dr Georgia Philip from The Centre for Research on Children and Families (CRCF), School of Social Work UEA, Simon Floyd, creative director at Floyd Productions and The Common Lot, Chris Dickerson and Travis Britton, the facilitators of ‘Dads’ Matter’ a service for fathers delivered by Norfolk County Council, and Andy Wood from MensCraft, a Norwich based charity supporting men and boys.
The HYF project report is available to download below and watch this space for details of the forthcoming HYF website and online training resources.
For more information contact Dr Georgia Philip g.philip@uea.ac.uk