Central Auckland Barnardos have encouraged us to contact all Barnardos teams and share our message and resources. We are part of the publicity and event coordinators for Waitakere City’s Focus on Fathering Week. The series of events leading to fathers day celebrations requires, local news and regional awareness.

We have a start date August 18th for the Waitakere Teen Dads Support Program with HealthWest, ChangeWorks and Barnardos in Waitakere City. This is the first teen father support project in Auckland.

Child Youth and Family at Youth Justice North engaged us to provide two sessions on Healthy Choices re Fathering. Based on positive feedback, plus our work in Christchurch, we have designed and submitted a 4-6week program proposal and await their decision.

This program helps young men appreciate the changes in lifestyle, relationships and commitments required to be a good father. Our research and experience, along with the Barnardos teen dads survey and Changeworks course and related workshops which have been used, lead us to believe that these courses lead to long term improvements.

We are being contacted for information and resources by many groups, ManAlive in Henderson, IRD in Whangerei and a counselling for couples after separation crew in Hamilton. As the printing of magazines for New Babies is currently halted awaiting funding, plus there are limits on our ability to print Dads and Babies booklets in bulk, with Auckland we are struggling to keep up.

Our Auckland office has been busier than usual in a number of ways. Our telephone support commitment has seen new clients weekly and a Mauri Ora Fathers group has been running since February. Activity has continued to increase, at all hours, during the period that our New Babies Edition – Father and Child magazines were distributed via the Bounty Packs.

We are also being asked to consider alternative advertising or sponsorship options for our New Babies magazines, which will concede some of the independence, credibility and product association preferences we were aiming to achieve. We hope that funders appreciate our gratitude for their type of support before we have to concede.

We receive a number of calls from Citizens Advice and similar offices, so need to produce and print regular leaflets, flyers, correspondence and meeting notices.