Hi, my name is Ed Hart, Boys and Young Men’s Worker for Brook Cornwall. I have had the extreme privilege to work over the last couple of years with a fantastic group of young men who really put the ‘father’ in ‘young fathers’! This support group for young dads formed about 18 months ago and have been working together since, along with a local film maker – James Hutchings, to produce a fantastic film! The film features interviews with 5 members of the group; Kev, Callum, Dave, Ryan and Matt who along with some of the other members portray their experiences of finding out they were going to be fathers and how fatherhood has affected them.

The film was launched a couple of weeks ago at The Keay Theatre in St Austell. The group and I, along with our other workers and volunteers, were joined by an enthusiastic crowd of family, friends, professionals and local dignitaries, all of whom fed back some wonderful warm praise at the end of the night.

The film will be used as an educational resource along with a lesson plan to look at the realities of fatherhood as well as being shown to professionals who work with young families to raise awareness. It is also a good snapshot of the work we do and young men have been showing to their friends to try and get them along to the group. It has also proved to be a catalyst to this work appearing on the agendas of local decision makers and we are extremely positive that the service has every chance of going from strength to strength.

Young fathers work is challenging to get running and it has taken us a lot of work but the results are there to see. We hope the film and the project will help to dispel some of the negative stereotypes that exist around young fathers and encourage young men who find out they are going to be a dad to be the best fathers they can possibly be.

Please have a look at the film via one of the following links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAlKY6YIGLA&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
http://vimeo.com/32958702

Or see the coverage of the event at:
http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/Young-dads-aim-right-message/story-13997300-detail/story.html