There is no doubt that historically, practitioners have focused support for families on the mother-child relationship. However, there is established evidence that when fathers engage with interventions, there are more sustained benefits in outcomes for children.  (Cowan & Cowan, 2002)

In this section we focus on the role of ‘dads’ which includes biological and non biological fathers or partners who are supporting the main caregiver in heterosexual and same sex relationships. Practitioners should be mindful of the roles played and titles given to parents in different families. There may be two ‘mums’ or two ‘dads’ or, as the terms ‘mum’ and ‘dad’ are binary, parents may use other titles.