Dads involvement with Health Visitor services

[MIDwife66]

As a health Visitor student I am interested in finding out what any dads think about how we can engage dads further?? Alot of dads are at work of course, so am thinking about out of normal hours, but wondering if there is anything in particular they would feel better about accessing? Thankyou

An interesting point. I'm not sure how you could engage them (I'll ask OH), but the one time he did take our little one to the HV, when she was about 8 weeks old, the HV was concerned about my mental health (because I'd "sent" him, rather than going myself). As it happened, he was off work and keen to meet the HV :)

HVs ( and GPs) need to hold clinics in the evenings and at weekends.
Most fathers work Mon- Fri 9-5, so bo surprise that they don't engage.

Totally agree with deepbluetr. Weekend clinics would be useful. My hubby works 8-6 during the week and also travels, it would be good to have support at the weekend as its not easy to take a newborn and your other children to app's during the week on your own. Also feel daddy misses out sometimes

What deepblue said. My husband massively feels like he's missing out

Working hours is obviously a big one but attitudes do need to change as well. My DH has time off in the week and took DS for a set of injections. He felt unwelcome and was questioned about where I was and why hadn't I come etc. The next day the HV turned up at my door asking how I was feeling.

Obviously, they have to look out for women who aren't coping but why is having a supportive husband who's happy to get involved seen as something to be concerned about? It left a really sour taste.

Why OP? What would be benefit to the children/families be if fathers had more involvement with HVs? The cost of OOH services would be huge. Is it necessary?

IMO for most families HV already have too much involvement but there are very many families where neither parent engages with HV services and it is those where efforts and money should be focused.

That said, changing the attitudes experienced by thatstoast and Millie would be a great start. Although I wonder if those attitudes come about at least in part because experience shows that there often is a problem with the mother's MH if the father is very involved in these type of things.

At the school where I work there are only three fathers who are more involved in their child's school life/medical appointments etc than the mothers are. Both mums do have MH problems.