One of the biggest challenges I hear from service providers is how to create an actionable father engagement plan.
There are 4 keys to creating an effective and actionable plan:
1. Process
How will you facilitate an effective planning session? It's tempting to jump right into the strategic planning session without giving enough time and thought to the pre-session design.
You can ask your planning team to answer a series of questions prior to the meeting such as:
- If you were to describe our fatherhood issue in one sentence, what would it be?
- What do you want accomplished when we are done? In general and specifically?
- What could derail this session?
- What are the 3-5 key questions that will crack open our fatherhood issue?
You should use a facilitation process during the session that gets everyone engaged, generates new ideas, and creates consensus on the best ideas to move forward with.
2. Ownership
How will you facilitate a shared vision at all levels of your organization? This is a by-product of an effective pre-session design and planning session because staff will already be an active part of the father engagement plan creation.
3. Accountability
How will you ensure people follow through on their actions? Once you have brainstormed ideas and established consensus on which ideas to move forward with, the next step during the planning session is to establish a “who/what/when” for each action step. Establish a time to follow up with everyone to get updates on their progress.
4. Flexibility
How will the plan change as actions are completed or no longer make sense? An effective father engagement plan should be a living and breathing document that changes as actions are completed and new information is available. There are many tools available to assist with this process such as Google Sheets and Google Docs where multiple people can update the same document and see everyone’s changes in real time.
These four keys will ensure that your father engagement plan is a living, breathing document infused with great ideas and accountability crucial for long-term success.
Click here to learn more about how National Fatherhood Initiative’s Father Engagement Experience™ can help you address these four keys.
Are you thinking about developing a father engagement plan? If so, how can you address each of these keys?
If you already have a father engagement plan, how might these keys enhance what you already have in place?
Are you a dad looking for help? Please visit our Fatherhood Program Locator™ and enter your city and state on the map to find programs and resources in your community.
