The NEWPIN Father’s program offers fathers and their pre-school children a centre based resource, open four days and one evening each week. Many of the fathers who attend the program have experienced significant abuse in their own childhoods, which has inevitably affected their self esteem and their ability to attach securely to significant others. The centre is designed to feel like a safe home, offering a secure base, enabling members to begin to make sense of past injustices and to form healthy attachments. The centre has a lounge room, a well equipped play area, a cot room for sleeping children, a kitchen and a comfortable group room.

NEWPIN take a strengths based holistic approach with families and the work is carried out therapeutically through a number of group processes. The initial group that new members belong to, takes place informally in the lounge room/play room. The lounge room/play room is a place to begin to build appropriate relationships and members learn communication and parenting skills through observing and practicing interactions. Modelling by staff and other members is very important and, at times, a staff member will work with an individual father to explore the effect of specific exchanges or behaviours. This enables members to start to understand their own responses and the effects these have on others. The role of peer support is fundamental to the working of NEWPIN.

This informal group process underpins a therapeutic and educative group program that all fathers attend, once they and their children are securely attached within NEWPIN. While the father’s are in group, their children are looked after in the play room by our highly skilled play staff.

The Personal Development Program (PDP) has six educational components for fathers:

• Fathering today – learning from our fathers and comparing the differences between then and now
• Our Skills as Parents Program – covers positive methods of discipline and building relationships with our children
• Five core values of the NEWPIN program: Support, Empathy, Equality, Respect & Self Determination
• Conflict Resolution – healthy ways of dealing with conflict and fair fighting rules
• Family Relationships - building better relationships and communication skills
• Keeping Children Safe – discuss all forms of abuse and neglect and examine the effects of abuse and to promote the care and protection of children and young people.

A further module is the Family Play Program, in which a father and one of his children, together participate in guided play experiences, aimed at strengthening  healthy attachments and encouraging   new parenting skills. Often this will be the first time that the adult has ever experienced the different types of play and, as well as learning about the importance of play for his children, it gives fathers an opportunity to grapple with some of those early  developmental stages, that they have themselves missed out on.

Each module runs for one term and members take approximately eighteen months to complete the program. A therapeutic support group runs alongside the educational component, providing fathers with a safe space to explore past and current issues. Once a father has joined the therapeutic support group, he continues to be a member until he is ready to leave NEWPIN.

Once NEWPIN members have been through the program, they are encouraged to pass on their skills and knowledge to their peers, through befriending new fathers.

Please contact us for further information.