Barnardos’s resource branch, ‘Fair Centre’, has published a book about teenage fathers by Massey University researcher Gareth Rouch. The book, called ‘Boys Raising Babies’, is based on interviews with 10 young men and tries to deconstruct the social stereotype of irresponsible young men.

Rouch expects the readership of his book to be mainly policy-makers or other social and community agencies rather than teen dads, because of the way it is written and edited. He is working on another resource targeted at the young fathers themselves.

In a letter advertising the book to agencies, the Fair Centre coordinator says “Perhaps one of the most disturbing tendencies in research policy and service delivery is to place the mother at the core of the family, with the primary responsibility for raising the child, while making the father a more unimportant figure.”

Father & Child Trust coordinator Harald Breiding-Buss welcomes Barnardos’s new focus on teen dads and says the book reflects the findings of the Trust’s own research on teenage fathers, which has first generated some publicity around the issue.

“It is good to see Barnardos admitting that service delivery is mother-focused, as many of our clients have commented very negatively about this.”