To support the implementation of promoting positive father involvement as a primary prevention strategy, Shift and Catholic Family Services initiated a series of informal meetings on promoting positive father involvement with not-for profit organizations throughout Calgary. Through this initiative, leaders from more than 30 organizations have come together bi-monthly to share evidence based practices and policies, experiences in promoting positive father involvement in their organizations, discuss barriers and challenges for the work and map available resources for fatherhood initiatives in Calgary and Alberta. To support this group, Shift is drawing on evidence-based research to help family services organizations to become more father friendly and better support dads through their programming. Catholic Family Service have gone through a five year process and continue to share their experience and expertise in changing organizational culture and practices as reflected on their website.

“It’s no secret that changing an organization’s culture is one of the most difficult leadership challenges. Staff roles, infrastructure, processes and systems are in some ways the easy parts. At this point, our focus is getting everyone on the same page regarding the vision and benefits of the program. Open and honest communication is paramount. We continue to ask curious and sometimes thorny questions and do our best to listen to all perspectives – staff, volunteers, partners, and most importantly, the young men and women that we serve.”