IFMHD 2021: A blog from Best Beginnings CEO, Alison Baum

Looking After Fathers’ Mental Health

This blog was contributed as part of International Fathers Mental Health Day 2021

I am thrilled to have the opportunity to invite new and expectant fathers across the UK to get involved in an exciting project – the development of the world’s first app that provides fathers with daily personalised information. My team at Best Beginnings has been working on this for years, alongside Mark Williams and many other fantastic father campaigners and organisations, with the goal of supporting fathers throughout their pregnancy and until their child’s first birthday (and, in time, beyond!). 

This new app for fathers (that you can sign-up to “test-drive” by clicking here) is an updated version of the NHS-approved Baby Buddy app, which was created by Best Beginnings and launched in 2014.

I founded Best Beginnings back in 2006 to support all parents, co-parents and caregivers to give their children the best beginning in life. The idea for the Baby Buddy app was conceived in 2010/11 and the plan was always to have daily content for fathers as well as mothers and other parents and caregivers. In fact, even though the original version of Baby Buddy only provides personalised daily information for mothers, it has already been used by over 20,000 fathers across the UK since it was launched. The feedback from these fathers has been phenomenal with 88% of fathers completing in-app feedback reporting that Baby Buddy is helping them look after their mental health and 98% reporting that the app is helping them feel more confident caring for their baby.

Over the years my team and I have written many funding applications to create a version of Baby Buddy that actively supports fathers (I recently found a detailed application we wrote in 2012 to request funding for the dad’s version of Baby Buddy!). Although this project has taken longer than we would have liked to come to fruition, life is a journey and things don’t always happen as fast as we wish – but when you are serious about driving lasting societal change, it is worth playing the long-game. 

Thanks to the amazing work of phenomenal fathers’ mental health advocates, to funding from the National Lottery Community Fund and the AIM Foundation and thanks to expert input from very many fathers organisations and fathers of all backgrounds; over the last year we’ve been creating a significantly improved new version of Baby Buddy (which was already a multi-awarding app). 

Today feels like a water-shed moment, after nearly a decade of waiting, we at Best Beginnings are inviting fathers across the UK to “test-drive” the new app weeks before it is launched. Please give us your feedback and help shape it before it launches later this summer.  All of us at Best Beginnings are so proud to be collaborating with so many wonderful people to give fathers the support they need and deserve.

Sign up by clicking here today!

Together we can make a difference for future generations.

To find out more head to: https://www.bestbeginnings.org.uk/blog/looking-after-fathers-mental-healthby clicking here