The project “Responsible dad. Parental education in library” engages public libraries from three European countries: Poland, Netherlands and Portugal. This project raises the point of an important topic: being a responsible father during changing societal conditions. Women’s enhanced position in society, children and teenagers separating from their parents by modern technologies, the lack of role models, new cultural trends and liberalisation of morality makes fathers feel marginalised in in the field of family life. With our project “Responsible dad. Parental education in library” we want to support men in developing responsible fatherhood and to teach how to become an active and fulfilled parent. To achieve it, we set down following project goals: - Exchange of good practices and gain of competencies, which could be used as good tools in informal education in public libraries as a contribution in creating new fields for supporting the fathers and their families; - Breaking stereotypes and finding a new way of communication and understanding; - Engaging participants in the process of building father-child relation based on acceptance openness and appreciation; - Personal, social and professional self-development of participants; - Developing new forms of activities for working with parents, - Creating the fathers’ club for fathers and children of all ages, willing to share their experiences, in every partner institution. The activities foreseen in this project will equip participants with new skills essential for the development of responsible fatherhood. Exchange of experiences on an international level will enable the preparation of new interesting activities related to developing relations between fathers and their children of all ages, including adolescents and adults. We will be showing how to find an inspiration in creating and deepening these relations through the literature, film, dance and fun activities. Relations, in which the father is a guide, teacher and a friend. Through these meetings and various workshops, led by both well-prepared librarians and professionals, our club members will gain new abilities and the confidence that being a father is a huge responsibility, but also the greatest adventure in the world!
Our goal was to activate local communities, especially men, e.g. by introducing new forms of non-formal education built on patterns acquired and developed during project activities. Our goal was to build an environment of support for the development of fathers and their families, to support men in developing responsible fatherhood and to show how to be an active and fulfilled parent. Through the implementation of the project "Responsible Dad. Parental education in the library” we wanted to show that time devoted to children is an excellent investment. Training, workshops, meetings, participation in foreign mobilities to exchange good practices made the project participants better understand the problems of an important part of library users - fathers - their needs, possibilities, expectations, and sometimes limitations.
Observations conducted in partner institutions showed that men often lack the competence to fulfill the role of a responsible father, and most of them bind the feeling of "lack of time". When creating the project, we had no doubts that children without responsible fathers lose a lot. Our belief was also supported by data from the “Journal of Marriage and Family” report, which clearly showed that children from families of committed fathers have better self-esteem, are less susceptible to peer pressure, are more sensitive, have more developed empathy and cope better in school and then into the labor market. We assumed that public libraries could play an important educational role in this topic through non-formal education conducted there. As institutions that have been operating in European countries for many years, they are in the public awareness and function as traditional centers of culture and education.