An Cosán, Ireland’s largest community education provider, offers a range of courses face-to-face and online from access to degree level. Its holistic approach includes wraparound supports for learners and families, including high quality early years’ education, IT support, financial support, parenting support, and one-to-one mentoring and counselling.
An Cosán’s learners include adults returning to education, early school leavers, people experiencing poverty and social exclusion, migrants and people living in direct provision. It is an inclusive organisation that believes in caring for the whole person and their family.
Through its network of 220+ community partners in 26 counties, An Cosán offers opportunities for people of all ages and nationalities to upskill and increase their confidence in order to secure better employment and a brighter future for themselves and their families.
An Cosán also works with like-minded organisations across the EU. One initiative it has recently been involved in developing with partners in Spain, Greece and Iceland is the Erasmus+ Fatherhood Project, with the aim of equipping young fathers (18-30 years old) for their parenting role by providing training, support and networking opportunities.
An Cosán invited community educators, young fathers, community workers and other stakeholders to the Irish launch of the Fatherhood Project, which took place in its Tallaght community education centre on 21 st March 2023.
The online training programme that has been developed is open and accessible and available in four languages, including English. It includes six modules with training materials for educators/practitioners (i.e. content slides, best practices, activities) and covers the following subjects:
- Communication and father-child attachment
- Self-esteem
- Child development
- Positive parenting
- Healthy family habits
- The relationship of the father with their child’s education
The outputs of the Fatherhood Project include:
- GAP analysis: Situation and environment analysis on parenting. Parenting, rights and obligation in EU law and current situation on gender participation in the upbringing of their children, desktop research, identification and interviews with stakeholders on existing custody/parenting processes and available support.
- Fatherhood inspiration / empowerment training : Α training programme to inspire and empower young fathers. Using methods of positive psychology and emotional intelligence, working with personal strengths and character-based training.
- Fatherhood peer videos : Fatherhood videos are online peer-to-peer videos with the objective to create training material and stories that will empower young fathers in their parenting role.
- Fatherhood platform: The Fatherhood website will host all the resources relating to the project making it accessible, open and free for any community educator, community practitioner who works with young fathers to access and deliver in a group setting.
To find out more about the Fatherhood Project visit the website ( linked here ).