Training & Consultancy
Absent Father Aware Training & Consultancy
Supporting systems to better understand and respond to boys growing up without a consistent father figure.
Lads Need Dads is a specialist early intervention organisation supporting boys growing up without a consistent father figure.
Over the past decade, our work across schools, families and communities has highlighted an important gap: while awareness of boys’ needs is growing, many systems are not yet equipped to recognise or respond to the impact of father absence.
We support Family Hubs, local authorities, schools and frontline services to become Absent Father Aware — strengthening early identification, improving understanding and supporting more timely, effective responses.
The Challenge
Boys growing up without a consistent father figure can be:
- Misunderstood in their behaviour
- Identified too late
- Supported inconsistently
This can contribute to:
- Missed opportunities for early intervention
- Increasing levels of need
- Greater pressure on families and services
Many mothers raising sons alone are also navigating significant emotional, practical and financial pressures, often without targeted support.
Lads Need Dads helps organisations move beyond awareness and toward informed, connected and effective early intervention.
Lads Need Dads supports systems, practitioners and families to move beyond awareness into informed, structured and effective early intervention.
Three Blind Spots in Supporting Boys Growing Up Without a Consistent Father Figure
Over the past 10 years, working alongside boys growing up without a consistent father figure, we’ve noticed recurring themes.
The challenge is rarely a lack of care. More often, it’s that some important factors can remain unseen. These are areas that may quietly shape outcomes for boys and are sometimes overlooked within wider systems of support.
Understanding Father Absence
Father absence can be less visible than other challenges. A child may appear settled on the surface while still navigating questions around confidence, identity, emotions or belonging.
When father absence is not recognised as a meaningful factor within a boy’s wider story, support can sometimes arrive only after difficulties begin to emerge.
Early Identification Matters
Many schools and services do not have consistent ways of identifying boys growing up without a father figure. As a result, support can become reactive rather than preventative, often beginning only once concerns become more visible.
Early recognition, particularly at key transition points, can create opportunities for support before challenges escalate.
Seeing the Wider Picture
For many boys growing up without a father figure, mothers and carers are carrying significant responsibilities and pressures.
When support recognises the wider family context and strengthens connections between home and services, interventions can become more joined-up and effective.
A More Connected Approach
Supporting boys growing up without a consistent father figure often requires more than a single intervention. It requires understanding, consistency and support that recognises the environments boys move between.
By recognising these blind spots, we can begin creating responses that are not only well-intentioned, but timely, connected and meaningful.
Parent Workshops
Understanding Behaviour
This training explores and seeks to create a better understanding of behaviour and how it presents in young people and their families. We increase awareness of the therapeutic approach to behaviour, which is highly effective in creating long-term change in our young people. Parents and carers who attend this training leave with improved confidence in responding to behaviour by what they observe, say and do. They tell us that over time they see significant improvements in their sons’ behaviour.
Understanding the Impact of Fatherlessness
This training explores the issue that we are so passionate about, fatherlessness, and the impact of the lack of a positive male role model on boys. A two hour workshop for parents, carers and professionals that will give attendees a greater understanding of social, physiological and mental health concerns related to this issue in boys. This training also seeks to find practical solutions moving forward for families with no positive role model living at home.
Interested in training?
Our Parent Workshops are available to parents and carers of boys enlisted on our programme. We plan to make these available to all single mothers and carers in the future. For more information please contact us.
What We Offer
Practitioner Training
We support Family Hubs, schools and frontline professionals to:
- Recognise father absence as a meaningful factor in boys’ lives
- Understand how it can present in behaviour and wellbeing
- Respond with greater confidence and consistency
- Strengthen early intervention approaches
Support for Mothers Raising Sons
We provide supportive, non-judgemental spaces that help mothers:
- Navigate the challenges of raising sons alone
- Strengthen communication and relationships
- Understand emotional and developmental needs
- Build confidence and connection
Early Intervention Pathways
We work alongside organisations to strengthen early identification and support pathways.
Our direct delivery programmes, including LADPODs and Reading Mentors, can be introduced through partnership or commissioned arrangements where appropriate.
This approach helps ensure:
- Systems are equipped
- Pathways are established
- Support can be introduced sustainably
Who We Work With
- Family Hubs and Early Help services
- Local Authorities
- Schools and Multi-Academy Trusts
- Youth Justice and prevention teams
- Voluntary and community sector organisations
Suicide First Aid Training
70% of suicides aged 10-19 in 20/21 were boys.
Boys are five times less likely to talk to Childline about their mental health than girls and even less likely to talk to about suicidal thoughts. (14% boys compared to 86% of girls talked about suicidal thoughts).
(Childline 2022)
Suicide First Aid (SFA) programmes give learners the tools and knowledge they need to understand that suicide is one of the most preventable deaths, and some basic skills can help someone with thoughts of suicide, cope with their thoughts, and stay alive.
We are committed to improving the mental health of the young people that we work with and more broadly to their immediate families and extended communities. Lads Need Dads has an in-house Suicide First Aid Associate Tutor (qualified with Mental Health First Aid England) who can provide two levels of Suicide First Aid Training across either half a day or a full day. This course provides attendees with a clear stepped approach to recognising and asking, listening and exploring and creating a plan for people who may be considering suicide. For prices and details, please contact us.
Available courses
• Half-Day course for up to 20 learners
• Endorsed by UK ‘Skills for Health’ framework
• Assured by City & Guilds
• Option for learner to register for assured digital badge/certificate.
Teaching the theory and practise of suicide intervention skills that can be applied in any professional or personal setting, this programme is delivered over 3.5 hours as a suicide prevention awareness session. We use only the most experienced suicide prevention trainers to deliver this unique learning experience: for anyone who seeks greater understanding and confidence to intervene with people at risk of suicide.
The Suicide First Aid Lite course gives learners the knowledge and tools to understand that suicide is one of the most preventable deaths and some basic skills can help someone with thoughts of suicide stay safe from their thoughts and stay alive.
• Full-Day course for up to 16 learners
• Endorsed by UK ‘Skills for Health’ framework
• Option for learner to enrol in City & Guilds Level 4 Accredited Unit of Learning.
• Certification on completion of written assignment towards this unit of learning.
This is an in-depth, full version of our SFA training and is captured in a one-day event accredited by City and Guilds of London.
Course Content: SFAUSI is comprised of 4 parts, each approximately 90 minutes duration. The programme teaches and practices the skills and knowledge needed to identify someone who may be thinking about suicide and competently intervene to help create suicide-safety as a first aid approach.
The Suicide First Aid Associate Tutor Training and Development Programme is accredited by City & Guilds.
Interested in training?
Other services
Consultancy
We work with outside agencies, professional and community groups, private and third sector to raise awareness of fatherlessness in order to find solutions both practically and strategically around fatherlessness. This is provided on a bespoke basis. Please contact us for further details.
Keynote Speaker
If you are running an event and you would like to book us as your keynote speaker then please get in touch so we can discuss your needs and the related costs for this.
Why Lads Need Dads
As one of the first organisations in the UK to specialise in father absence and its impact on boys, we bring over a decade of focused early-intervention experience in this space. Our work combines:
- Over 10 years of frontline experience
- Direct work with boys and their families
- Insight into mother–son dynamics
- Early intervention and long-term support models
We bridge the gap between:
awareness → understanding → effective response
Work With Us
We are currently exploring pilot partnerships with Family Hubs and local authorities.
We welcome conversations around:
- Practitioner training
- Pilot programmes
- System-wide implementation
- Partnership and commissioning opportunities
Get in touch to explore how we can support your service