 Just going to briefly turn on my webcam so you can see me. I'm going to wave hello. And I think we're going to be doing the rest of the session without me on camera. Hi everyone. My name is Aaron Maddock. Thank you for joining me for this presentation. And thank you to Sarah Stewart for the invitation. And thank you to everyone who's involved in this event. It's a huge privilege to be part of this. And I just want to say Happy International Day of the Midlife. And I just want to thank all the midwives out there for the amazing work you do for the men, women, children and family in our communities all over the world. And for the amazing role that you play at birth, which is such an important space to keep. And for doing that with the care, the passion, the commitment and the talent that you do. So yeah, thank you very much. I'm going to go off camera now and continue the rest of the presentation without the camera. So tonight I'm coming from Leesmore, which is in northern New South Wales, the state of Australia. And just on the side, during the month of May, our town is formerly officially known as Lovemore. So I thought you'd like to know that tonight that I'm coming from Lovemore tonight. So first preparation for Dad. I thought I'd like to start introducing myself really and share a little bit about me just to give you a bit of context around the work and the topic. So I'm a father. I've got a son who's going to be five years old in June. But I've played, I guess, a number of different roles in a fathering context. I was a stepfather for about seven years, a boy and girl. And I've seen a son, I've seen a grandson. My parents were separated and I lived with my father for five years. And now I'm a single dad myself. So I've had a fairly bastard-rave fathering experience. And I guess that's something that I do bring to my role as what I research myself as a fatherhood mentor. And that's the role that I play in my community and something that I'm very keen to see become more common in more communities in more places. So my professional background and training, I've been on this path for about five years now or a bit longer. I began in the birth scene during the pregnancy of my son. And I worked as a natural birth advocate for the natural birth education research centre, which is in my community. And that just came about as the stroke of serendipity and maturity, really. I ended up, well, we ended up making an arrangement with the centre that I would give my time in exchange for a midwifery fee, which was an amazing agreement to make, an amazing experience and openings for me to become involved in birth in that way. So that was the beginning. Since then I've gone on to do some men's work and men's working with men, professional training. And after doing that training, I realised that my clear point of focus was working with fathers. I loved being a dad. And the more that I observed other fathers and other spaces of fatherhood in our communities, I realised there was a significant gap there. And it didn't take me long to hone in on the big gaps around the second and new dad's base. So from there it's been about almost five years of being on this path of working exclusively with Expected and New Dads. So I do get to come into contact with a lot of Expected and New Dads now. I conduct what I call dad chat sessions within hospital based anti-natal classes. I run or facilitate fatherhood preparation courses. And I facilitate birth preparation workshops for dads. And I also co-facilitate pregnancy couples workshops in my community. But now I'm just really looking to take this wider. This is much bigger than me. So I'm really keen to share what I'm doing, to share what I'm learning and hopefully inspire more men to get involved in this work and to see more fatherhood mentors working in other communities around the world. Because I believe that the issue of fatherlessness is probably one of our biggest global issues. So the idea is to engage dads early and as early as possible and to bring them in. And to appropriately engage them and educate them and mentor and support them on their journey to becoming dads. So this is what this is all about. It's sharing some of my experiences and learning and perspectives from the work that I've been doing and some of my ideas about where it can go and where we need to take it. So that's where we're heading tonight. So I'm happy to take any questions at this point before we move on. Okay, doesn't look like we've got any questions coming through so I'm just going to keep going with the presentation. So the next image, I love this photo. I love it so much. For me it just speaks to what birth can be. And obviously there is the dad here in this picture and it just speaks to me, birth is the whole family event. And it's just good to have a reminder of that, that birth is a whole family event. And I feel like more and more now that we're really starting to understand on quite a profound level that dads are an important part of the picture. And I think that's why there is such a growing interest in how do we make the changes that we want to see, that we need to see. How do we bring dad in? How do we make it work? And I love the curiosity that's out there now. I love the interest. I love the directions that we're taking towards embracing men's involvement in birth. And when you think about it, there's only been a fairly recent phenomenon. We only need to go back one generation usually and now. Many men weren't present or weren't even allowed to be present at the birth of their children. And I'm talking in modern Western type cultures. I know there are cultural differences to be acknowledged. But I guess on speaking in my culture, the Australian culture, it's only been a fairly recent phenomenon that men have actually been involved. And this is part of the reason why there are gaps and why we're still learning about dads and birth is because we're coming from a time where things have changed and they've changed really quickly. So now we're catching up. We're trying to gain knowledge. We're trying to gain experience. We're trying to gain insight. And masculinity is evolving. And fatherhood is evolving in parallel with masculinity as well. So we're learning so much right now about men and how to engage them, how to support them. So just moving into the next. So in Australia, over 90% of men are now present for their birth of their child. So that's a huge rate from where we were just a few decades ago. And the way that things happen now, the way that we do birth here, dads are typically the primary support person for their partner during birth. So in that respect, they have a hugely important role. And this was knowledge that dads will influence the birth outcome positively or negatively. And I think this is where there's a big point of focus. And this is where it really becomes important around engaging, educating, mentoring and supporting dads to be at birth because they can have such a huge impact. And they can have an amazingly positive impact. And they equally, they can have a very negative impact. And as mid-wide, does birth keepers, birth workers, or anyone who's come into contact with anyone post-birth, you're probably aware of those cases. So it's just so important that for this reason that we keep focusing on dads and ways that we can better support them than we are doing now. And so attachment science is telling us and has told us that it's not only mums and babies that go on to birth. It's dads and babies as well. It's families that bond at birth. So what we really need to be doing is supporting dads to be at birth in such a way that we can maximize these opportunities for bonding at birth. So we know about skin to skin and we know about oxytocin. We know about how that peaked at this time right after birth and we know the opportunity there. So what we need to be doing is supporting more men to bring their presence to the birth space so they can maximize these opportunities for them. And I believe it's my belief that this is a huge opportunity for bringing men in, for creating a lasting and lifelong bond in the birth space. So when we talk about the issues of fatherlessness and father-absence, I believe that if we can do birth better, we can have dads engage for longer and lead the life. And that's what we want. That's what we need. That's what our community is made. So I believe it all begins here. That's one of the main reasons why I have committed to focusing on the sex in the new dad's face. Any questions? Okay, I'll back to you then. Thanks Trish. So also too, dads will be a key figure in the birth story and the birth story is something that rids with the mother forever. And so this is just another important element for dads that in terms of keeping families together, in terms of creating stronger families, if we can support them better in the birth space, we can have experiences of the last traumatic birth. We can send families home if they're not birthing at home with birth stories that are more harmonious and more gentle than perhaps what we're doing now because men are playing a more effective and a more confident role at birth. So masculinity in fatherhood has evolved and my perspective is, after doing this work for a number of years now, is that the services and support around fatherhood and the birth base haven't kept pace with this evolution. So what we're seeing is over 90% of men now present at the birth of their child. But the services and support that we're offering in terms of engagement, education and support throughout the pathway for a man during the anti-natal period and in the birth space and in the post-partum period don't reflect this evolution. So what we have are these significant gaps in policy practices and what I mean by experience here is, and I think this is part of the issue, is there's not as many people as we need who are actually skilled at engaging, educating and supporting men working in these spaces to be able to pass on their learned wisdom, their knowledge, their anecdotes from the front line to other people in the workforce to actually build that experience base because we're still in the early days. So that's what we're really needing, what we're really calling for right now is I feel like we're calling for more investment, greater investment in this area. We need to acknowledge and recognise the importance of this time, this space and the evolution that has occurred and acknowledge that with investment. So what we need is more father-focused and father-friendly engagement, education and support in the expected and new dad's space. So based on my experience, so onto the next slide. Based on my experience here in Australia, what I've observed and what I've heard through the stories of other men is that they do feel under-engaged, under-educated and under-supported on their journey through becoming dad. So what I've observed is that most expected dads, this is the extent of their preparation so they'll go to childbirth education classes with their partner and that is typically the only birth preparation that a man will do. So some will obviously go beyond that and do some reading and most will do some reading so that will vary from man to man as to the depth and extent of what he reads, whether it's just internet only or books or both. But in terms of actual engagement and education and even support, it's usually only very easy getting that through childbirth education classes and obviously if they attend any appointments as well. So one of my big points here is that anyone who comes into contact with an expected and new dad has a huge amount of influence over his experience and that can really make a profound difference to him. Because the right of passage of fatherhood has become so diluted that most men's preparation for becoming a dad is going to childbirth education classes. So that's really where he goes to get his sense that he's becoming a dad. He's also there to learn about birth obviously but this is also really the right of passage of becoming a dad as well. So this huge and profound time of change and transformation often is being experienced within the health space within the anti-natal education crisis appointment. So to him that's pretty much what he's getting. So anyone who comes into contact with a man at this time is having a huge amount of influence. And my experience, I do get to go to anti-natal education classes at my local hospital to, well, it shouldn't be uni or that groundbreaking that there's not many places that are doing it, there's not many opportunities where dads only are being engaged in that space or in that way. So I go into classes and I take them aside for an hour and we have a dad chat and I open the space up to them to check in with them to see how they're doing, to see where they're at around their journey to becoming dad and birth preparation. I get them relating to each other so that they start to build a group dynamic within their anti-natal class group. And then why I've got the opportunity of being in that space with them and building some rapport with them, offer them a place in a fatherhood preparation course which is government funded and running this area. So it's a free program so we use the health space as a pathway to bring them into that program. And the program is funded by the Australian Federal Government Department of Faxia. So this is a great example of two government departments with, I guess, separate budgets and agendas working together. And it works very well. It works very, very well. And I'm grateful that the maternity care people at my local hospital really understand and value this work. It's been nothing but open doors. I mean it has taken a while to build this partnership but now that we have it, they understand what we're doing. We have great relationships and I work closely with the midwives and educators to develop our sessions and plan our sessions and coordinate them and attend and deliver them. So it works fantastically. And yeah, as an aside, the head of midwifery at our local hospital is a man. He's a dad and I think he just really gets the value of this work as well. It's fantastic. So does anyone have any questions? I'm keen to answer some questions. Any questions out there? Okay. Yeah, so has it been translated? Have we formally evaluated the work? We do evaluate the fatherhood preparation program that is the wizard in this region. It's been running now for the past seven years, which is quite groundbreaking. So it began working out of a community health space and then about four years ago, like I had this vision that really needed to be more community-based and connect more in with other community services and develop its own identity in that way. And I just thought as something that it could just become part of the services and support the infrastructure that was in our community and how it's evolved now. So we still maintain a very close relationship with our regional health service. So in terms of evaluation, we do a post-course evaluation and we've got a very good track record in terms of maintaining engagement from dads throughout. It's a three-session course over three weeks and the feedback is fantastic. We bring them back for a reunion, which is an opportunity for them to reconnect and post birth and share their birth story. And again, continue to build the community with some of the fathers that have shared this experience, which is also a really important part of it as well. Another couple of questions there from Tabitha. Yeah, okay. So question from Tabitha. My advice for helping dads in the midst of a traumatic birth dealing with postpartum, I guess two different things. Advice to dads experiencing a traumatic birth. When I'm talking to dads about preparing for birth, one of the biggest things that I focus on is mindfulness and how they're going to maintain their mindfulness and presence in the birth space regardless of what's going on. So what I really try to instill in men is just as a woman whose birthing needs to come to that place in herself that she can do this, I feel it equally as valid for men in the birth space. So that's what I try to send them in with is this sense that they can do this so regardless of what's going on that they can find a place within themselves or even without themselves that they actually are consciously aware of the support that's around them and how to access it if and when they need to so that they can be with the birth experience and also maximise their experience of birth as well. So that's my short answer to that question. And what makes dads feel more supported and particularly makes them feel more engaged from fishies? Fishies is a great question and I think in terms of what makes them feel more engaged I think receiving more engagement is one of the biggest keys here. It's one of the things that I've noticed is that the way, anti-natal education, but the dads I think they're feeling like a lot of the focus is on mum and dad and what we need to do is find more ways to sometimes shift the focus and focus on dad and do it in a way that engages him, that acknowledges him, that educates him and that supports him and that's what we need to do is we need to work out how we can do this with the opportunities that we've got and it makes a difference. What I've observed in dads is when they've had positive experiences of being engaged and feeling like someone's really taking the time to give them the focus for a while, it makes a difference and so what I feel like one of the things that dads are really wanting to hear and not getting a lot of is what is their role at birth? So a lot of them will go through anti-natal ed classes. They'll have an idea around what to expect at birth but they still have a very unclear idea about what their role actually is and how they can play it and so that's where dads walk away with a lack of confidence and also like a sense that they haven't been that engaged. So whenever we can take the opportunities that we've got just to turn the lens from mum and bub, flick it over to dad, give him something meaningful. Most dads will absolutely love that and they'll get something from it. So great question. I might just move on to the next. So what aren't dads prepared for? So I think I just started to touch on that now. What they're really wanting to know and what they're not prepared for is how to effectively and confidently play their role at birth. So talking about the emotional and psychological preparation that is engaging and supportive in a way to get them to that space in themselves where they have that I can do this moment and this is what most men aren't getting now. So what they're also wanting to know, men love practicality. So how to be a hands on birth support partner, being actively involved in supporting their partner with pain management options and just call this the dad's toolkit. So what can I enter the birth space with that I know that I can offer, I can do, I know when to go to the toolkit, I know what I'm looking for and I have a confident and I have the ability to use it and that's what he's looking for. A way to be useful, a way to be practical at birth as well where as possible. And one of the most important ones I believe is how to be an advocate for their partner and the importance of their role as an advocate. And I really do see with the number of men being the primary support person for their partner at birth, I really do see that men are the last bastion there between their vulnerable partner and caregivers and so they can really make a difference to the birth outcome and the birth story and this is, you know, most men aren't really aware of the gravity of the role that they have, that they play, the way that they can influence the birth positively or negatively and also just this important role of advocacy and even, you know, what that means and preparing them to play that effectively. And so I always like to share with men that, you know, the best way to roll with this role is to keep your caregivers on side, so try and build positive relationships with them and I guess work with perhaps some of those, you know, masculine instincts to launch in protective mode and, you know, maybe lose their presence. So that's what I really like to focus on that here. And, you know, another really important one is, you know, where and how they can seek support if they need it. So what we really need to be doing is giving some support to the support and we all know this one for ourselves by working in support roles that we need people behind us too and really important for dads that just know that they've got someone, somewhere to go that they can lean when they need it and when it's all going down. So I just see a comment here from Claire Bell, like hopefully by including dads, birth partners will ensure mothers come first and I really just want to speak to that because it's a really good point and it's one of the foundations to the work that I do because I do believe that by focusing on dads and in the work that I do and supporting dads to be at birth confidently, effectively and with presence and love that it can make a significant difference to the birth outcome and experience. So like I see this, the big picture of this is that a birth, healthier babies, happier families, happier men, happier women, stronger families, healthier communities and I think it is really big picture stuff and I think that there's a really big difference that can be made here so thanks for the comment Claire Bell. Okay, just speaking to a comment from Hannah, Barbara as well. I did an essay and looked at fathers and their involvement. Most men said that half of the time they didn't feel involved and felt like they were in the way. Most wanted separate classes with a male midwife so they could ask their man questions. And this is a great point so just talking to it, most men said they didn't feel involved and I think that's how many men talk about their experiences going to antenatal appointments and classes that they're just not for me, I'm just there. And this is what we need to change. We need to change the experience for the men so that they are feeling more involved and more part of the picture. However we can do that and that's one of the reasons why I do go to the antenatal classes. I make a point of going to the first session of every new six-week program at my local hospital and for the 22 of them this year we go into every one. And I go on the first night because it's when I find the men are the most open and most of the men are there so their motivation's high. And I make a point of taking in some father-focused information and brochures and then I pull them aside and we send that hour together and I feel like that's really giving them something for them. And it does make a different facilitating that space being a man and being an experienced dad. And this is something that I'm very passionate about seeing more of is more men working in the birth space and even new parenting space, the second dad space so that we can begin to rebuild this dialogue between father-to-father and man-to-man and start to normalise men getting together again to talk about fatherhood and becoming a dad. And masculinity can take that leech forward because it's what we need and it's what men are calling for and it's what women are calling for from their men as well. I believe it's the next leech forward for us. So yeah, great point Hannah. I'm going to move on to the next slide. So this will offer an example of policy and practice that we can put in place that facilitate greater engagement and education and support for dads. This comes from the UK. So in the UK there's a peak fatherhood body called the Fatherhood Institute and in collaboration with the Royal College of Midwives, they developed this and the Department of Health by the looks of it. They developed this booklet called Top Tips for Involving Fathers in Eternity Care. So it actually outlines strategies and techniques and methods and practices for midwives on how to involve fathers in Eternity Care essentially. So basically the work has been done to develop this within the health space recognising that dads are important and that this is a step forward. So this is just one example. This is a brief booklet and the bigger booklet is this which is reaching out. So this is the more comprehensive guide that's been developed by the Fatherhood Institute in collaboration with the Royal College of Midwives. So basically what's included in this guide. So Top Tips to help with the engagement of fathers in antinatal, intrapartum, postnatal care and beyond. So there's also examples of good practice and what I like about this is that there's also links to useful resources for health professionals and expecting new fathers. So it's for both. It's for everyone. And I think this is a great example of something. So it's a policy that is across the board within the health space. The Royal College of Midwives in the UK. And I think it's something that we could look at doing everywhere is having a real strategy around how we're going to bring dads in, how we're going to engage them, how we're going to educate them, how we're going to support them in the maternity care space. So I'm just going to keep going with the presentation and I'll get to some more questions. Hopefully I'll get the opportunity to answer a few more questions once I do. So what expectant dads need? So again, this is just developed from my experience and perspective based on what I think those two, what I've seen, what I've learnt from the work that I've been doing and the spaces that I have. So expectant and new dads space definitely needs to evolve and then needs more than it presently has. So we need to just catch up with the leap that was made in dads being involved in birth and also the calling of coming from dads to be involved in birth. I think one of the greatest drivers of the evolution of masculinity of fatherhood is coming from the hearts of fathers. So we have this amazing opportunity to embrace that calling from them by meeting their needs in any way that we can. So if we want to really make an impact on masculinity and fatherhood where there are a lot of issues in our communities and society and cultures and across the planet, this is one space where we can make a huge difference if we answer that calling. So if we take a more inclusive approach to birth preparation, so I'm talking here about father-inclusive practice and there are a number of father-inclusive practice guides around. It's something again that's evolved over the last few decades as fatherhood has evolved and fatherhood has evolved more positively to where more men want to be actively and positively involved in their children's life. And we need to take a more father-focused and male-friendly approach to engagement, education, mentoring and support. So just hatching on that point from our goals is that, yeah, we need more men working in this space wherever possible and we just need to take the opportunities that we've got to make a difference to that and give them something that they need. So more father-focused resources, brochures, videos, programs, that's part of the evolution as well. Just, yeah, again, balancing out, creating a greater balance there. And it's not that, I think that the space is tight. I think the focus is so much on mum and bub because the space is tight and resources are tight. And my perspective is I don't want rest for mum and bub. I actually just want more in space. I also want more for mum and baby, but I think dads need more as well. So we need more for everyone, not less for anyone. Definitely not less. So social innovation in Australia anyway is filling the need that's not being filled within the health space. So we've got things like fear and bub, childbirth education to dads at the pub which I present. And I made the decision to present fear and bub. Part of it was a bit of a social experiment because I believe that it's a nice soft entry for men doing men's work. And I love the idea of working with men and birth. So for me it was a great opportunity to do something with men and birth. And I use that space as a pathway to bring some of the men who rocked up to a fear and bub session and got something out of it to bring them then through into the fatherhood preparation for. And that has worked on occasion for some men because they rean into the experience of fear and bubs and then they want a taste of getting more of having the opportunity to get together with other men in the same boat as them and to hear from them, to learn from them and to get some men for men father to father engagement, education, mentoring, support. So it works really well. And this is just another one that I found on Facebook. There's a midwifery service in Queen Brand which is the state north of me, which is doing something similar. So they call it deer bloat and birth. And I believe this session is actually run by GP. And again, it's a man only space and it's just about providing a space for expectant dads to prepare for birth. And I think it's a fantastic idea. But my point is here is the social innovation is actually selling the need where the health space is currently meeting the need. So I believe this is a real sign that a government needs to address, but really addressing the need. And just to close, this picture here, I love this picture. It's a home birth, it's shortly after a home birth and that is the dad in the picture there. He does have long hair. And I really see that by supporting men to play their role at birth, that we're taking a step in the direction towards normal birth and I feel like that's a movement that we're also on at the moment is recognizing that birth is a normal event, a normal physical, biological, beautiful, wonderful, amazing, mysterious event. And that men can understand this too and men can play a part in that. And so by supporting men on this journey that we're taking another step towards normal birth. So that's my presentation for tonight. So thank you very much for being part of it and thank you everyone who's helped me be here to present it. Thank you so much, Dan. That was absolutely brilliant. Very inspiring. We've heard about the amazing work that you're doing in engaging dad's expectant fathers and new fathers and stealing a gap that is currently being filmed. So thank you so much.