Healthy lives, brighter futures 'dad's pack' idea explored Ed Balls and Alan Johnson talk to fathers - Leeds

Healthy lives, brighter futures 'dad's pack' idea explored Ed Balls and Alan Johnson talk to fathers - Leeds

LONDON. June 13, 2008/3mnewswire.org/ -- Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, and Alan Johnson, Secretary of State for Health, tomorrow (Saturday 14th June) will host a day of debate with parents, carers, guardians and professionals to help the Government shape key policies for the forthcoming Child Health Strategy to improve the lives and wellbeing of children, as part of the flagship Children's Plan.

The event in Leeds follows the success of the Time to Talk deliberative debates in December 2007 where participants helped shape the Children's Plan. Ed Balls and Alan Johnson will listen to mums and dads about their experiences with health services for their children and how we can improve them. Ministers are particularly interested in what could be done to improve fathers' engagement and experience of services before and after their children's birth such as improving ante-natal services to further involve fathers, as well as parenthood support.

We know that fathers sometime feel a bit like a spare part or ignored when it comes to accessing services - yet those who are positively involved with their children have a significant benefit on the child's health. Some of the specific talking points participants will be discussing are:

* Who do you think has most influence over a child/young person's health?

* Are children / young people adequately involved in the design of local health services?

* How easy or difficult is it for children/young people to access the right information and advice?

* Ante-natal classes. Some hospitals provide 'dad packs' - specific information just for fathers to be. Should we be supporting all hospitals to do this? How helpful are they for fathers and what information should they contain?

* Ante-natal appointments. Should these go to dads too? Especially for first babies, or a separate appointment to help support fathers through the experience too?

* Smoking. We encourage mums to give up smoking - especially when pregnant, but we need to help dads give up too for the health of their child as well as themselves.

* The NHS Red Book - can we make sure we've got more in it for dads? For example, what can dads do too in the first few months of a child's birth?

Date: Saturday 14th June, 2008
Venue: Hilton Leeds City Hotel, Leeds LS1 4BX
Time: Ministers will be at the event between 11.30 and 1.30

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