Families Need Fathers

Families Need Fathers (FNF) is a registered UK charity, founded in 1974. It provides information and support to parents, including unmarried parents, of either sex.

Overview
FNF is a self-help support group, and is involved in research into shared parenting, and political lobbying. It produces a regular newsletter, McKenzie, which is sent out to members of the charity and to people whom the charity considers influential. It has over 30 self-governing branches throughout the United Kingdom and provides other services to members.

FNF is chiefly concerned with the problems of maintaining a child's relationship with both parents during and after family breakdown, and has acquired over 10,000 members in its 30-year history. Undoubtedly, the majority of parents apart from children are fathers, but the charity supports both fathers and mothers and other family who have lost contact with children, and works with MATCH (Mothers Apart from Their Children), and the Grandparents’ Association.

The group's volunteer members offer advice to parents, which aims to be child-centred. Hence the advice here originally worked out by children who took part in a divorce survival class:


 * Don't ask us what happened while with the other parent
 * Don't ask us to keep secrets
 * Don't put us in a position where we have to tell lies
 * Don't ask us to take sides
 * Don't take out your anger on us
 * Don't get into competition with one another
 * Do allow us to love both parents without being got at by either
 * Don't ask us to choose between you

By encouraging its members to take a non-adversarial stance with their ex-partners and without expensive legal representation in court, FNF has attained considerable success in meeting its objective of ensuring that both parents remain involved in their children's lives in spite of one parent (usually the mother) being against it. Rt Hon Lord Justice Wall, a senior family court judge, has said, "Families Need Fathers has become a key player in the debate about on-going contact and joint residence." Many have found that an FNF McKenzie Friend has made all the difference to their and their children's lives.

In 1974, The Guardian published an article which included the following: ''The ability to give love, warmth and stimulation is not the prerogative of females alone and by these standards the father will frequently be the more suitable guardian. If the myth of a mothering instinct persists, then there is no reason to suppose that a fathering instinct does not exist as well. Whatever the case may be, children need both a mother and a father and this need does not cease when parents separate.''

Research

 * Family separation research in the UK

Organizations

 * Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS)
 * Child Support Agency (CSA)
 * Department for Constitutional Affairs
 * Department for Education and Skills (DFES)
 * Papà Separati
 * Family Justice Council
 * Fathers Direct
 * Fathers 4 Justice
 * NYAS

Other organisations in this field

 * The British Second Wives Club The Club for Second Wives and Stepmothers in Britain, offering help, advice, support and friendship to ladies who are with men who have been married before. The British Second Wives Club also welcomes international Second Wives And Stepmothers.
 * Family Justice Council
 * Fight 4 Kids
 * Parenting Education & Support Forum (PESF)
 * National Association for Child Support Action (NACSA)
 * Dads-UK Free Support Forums
 * Parentline Plus
 * The American Coalition of Fathers and Children (ACFC)
 * Fathers Direct
 * Mothers Apart from Their Children (MATCH)
 * Relate (formerly the Marriage Guidance Council)
 * Equal Parenting Alliance (EPA)
 * Family Resource Centre
 * National Fathers' Resource Center (NFRC) - Tools, advice, online courses, and information for fathers. Parenting and father's rights advocates as an outreach branch of the Fathers for Equal Rights, Inc. organization in Texas.
 * Desertion Survivors - Support/Advice for Deserted Partners/Parents in Relationships