How’s Your Father? Using research and theatre to change conversations about fatherhood and family services

This is the project report produced for the Nuffield Foundation.

‘How’s Your Father?’ (HYF) is an innovative, creative, and powerful approach to developing professional practice with men and with fathers. It has collaboration at its heart, and this is an integral part of its success. The project combines academic research with theatre in the applied setting of social work practice; it uses live theatre to communicate research findings and directly engage audiences with key messages. It consists of an ensemble theatre show and supporting professional development activities. The project ran from January 2023 to January 2024 and involved working in partnership with Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex Children’s Services to take live performances and related training workshops directly to practitioner audiences, in the workplace.