Based on ongoing research called ‘Following Young Fathers Further’ (2020-24), this presentation will explore the vital and valuable role that young fathers (aged 25 and under) have in promoting father-inclusive practice among multi-agency support professionals. Offering important counter narratives and examples from numerous projects where young fathers are engaged as ‘experts by experience’, the study addresses and challenges stereotypical and problematic assumptions of young father absence and disinterest in parenting and family life. Anna will provide a presentation, then join attendees in a Q&A and discussion.

Anna is Professor of Sociology and a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow. Her research expertise broadly focuses on men’s care responsibilities, welfare and support needs, in low-income families and contexts and across the lifecourse. She is author of ‘Fathering and Poverty: Uncovering Men’s Family Participation in Low income families’ published with Policy Press in August 2021. This book is based on a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship, funded between 2014 and 2018, which explored how poverty processes and welfare change impact on the family participation of men. You can follow her current research here: https://fyff.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/ and on twitter @Following YFF.