Community / Well Dads marks one year of giving dads ‘safe space’ to bring bairns and talk
‘There’s no subject untouched’, Mind Your Head chief says
A GROUP offering dads a safe space to speak with each other and play with their bairns celebrates its first anniversary this weekend.
Well Dads – which is fully funded by Mind Your Head – started after the mental health charity noticed there were no fathers attending a support group for families with young children.
Held every Saturday morning, it gives dads the chance to speak about anything from football to Up-Helly-Aa, and from childbirth to lack of sleep, without judgement.
Mind Your Head chief executive Anouska Civico stresses that Well Dads is not a group solely for speaking about men’s mental health.
“It’s the hardest job in the world being a parent, and it doesn’t get any easier either,” Anouska tells Shetland News at the charity’s offices in Market Street.
“Being able to talk that through in the group, if you want to, is going to improve your mental health and wellbeing.
“There’s no subject untouched.”
Jakob Eunson is a dad himself, and a regular attendee of Well Dads from day one. He jokes he was “just told to go” by his wife, but loved it so much he’s made it part of his Saturday routine.
“The conversations just happen in natural ways,” he says. “It’s a safe space – nobody is judgemental at all.
“One week we got into conversation about the difficulty of childbirth for our partners, and the next thing we could be speaking about local fitba. We can really speak about anything.
“It just takes someone to start speaking and everyone gets involved.”
Jakob thinks the men-only group gives dads the chance to speak about things related to parenthood they might feel uncomfortable discussing with mothers in the room.
“It’s good to have that space to have conversations about how difficult it can be to be a dad sometimes,” he says.
“Men probably feel like they can’t really complain in front of women because they’ve not been through all the worst bits of childbirth.
“But that’s not to say there are not hard bits for dads too. Sometimes it’s just a case of saying, ‘it’s really tough getting up four times a night’.”
Jakob says that, because the group is being run by Mind Your Head, some people seemed afraid that they would be asked to sit and speak about their mental health.
“More people coming have now realised that it’s not about mental health. That does sometimes come up, but it’s not forced on you to talk about it.”
Well Dads started in November 2024 as a space to get dads talking, and just to give them a place to take their bairns on a Saturday morning.
The group offers regular free activities, which last week saw Aa Fired Up visit with Christmas decorations to paint.
Anouska says Well Dads has “always been funded by us”, calling it a “unique service in that way”.
She says that generous donations from the community to Mind Your Head have continued to allow Well Dads to run – something she is keen to see continuing, and for free too.
“Having children is expensive, and its expensive enough living in Shetland,” Anouska says.
“Single dads haven’t got the money or the time for activities like Aa Fired Up.”
Mind Your Head came up with the idea for Well Dads after realising they had only seen one dad visit their Wellbeing 1000 group, for families with young children.
“It got to the point where we said, ‘there’s no way a dad is ever going to walk into this group’,” Anouska says.
“It would be extremely intimidating as a man to walk into a group of 12 women and kids having conversations about childbirth.
The women were so close, they would go for lunch afterwards. It was quite an established group and some people had been there for two years.
“We knew that there were loads of men in the community that are dads, or new dads, so that was the point of the group.
“We thought if two dads came that was going to be a success.”
She admits that it was a “slow burner”.
“We would have a good week and then it would go quiet, but we wanted it to be run every week.
“The numbers have really gone up recently. I’ll get messages now about how many folk have gone and I’ll be like, ‘how many dads?! That’s amazing!’”
Jakob calls it a “very peaceful” group, adding that it “feels more like Sunday morning because it’s so relaxed”.
“It’s hard sometimes finding somewhere to take your bairn to do things,” he says.
“So with this, you don’t have to come up with a plan. You just go to Well Dads and see what they’re doing.
“You can come in with half an hour left or come for the whole thing, and you can drop in and drop out if your child doesn’t want to stay.
“Plus it’s nice to know that there’s someone watching your bairns if you’re having a conversation!”
He says Well Dads is “so good for first-time dads” like himself.
“We all have at least one thing in common, which is that we’re all dads. You might not have anything else in common, but immediately you have something to talk about.”
Bubbles, a bouncy castle and a visit from the ever-popular Bookbug – which runs at Shetland Library every Tuesday – are among the activities that have been offered.
And Jakob says the Bookbug session was particularly popular among dads like himself, who had never been able to go before.
“My partner goes every week, but I don’t get to go with work,” he says.
“That was one week where we saw our greatest increase,” Anouska adds.
She says there is “really a commitment to keep it [Well Dads] going” from Mind Your Head.
And she urged anyone who has never been before to come along and give it a go.
Well Dads is held every Saturday morning from 10am to 12pm in Islesburgh’s room 12, with the group celebrating its one-year anniversary at tomorrow’s (Saturday) session.
Become a member of Shetland News
Shetland News is asking its readers to consider paying for membership to get additional perks:
- Removal of third-party ads;
- Bookmark posts to read later;
- Exclusive curated weekly newsletter;
- Hide membership messages;
- Comments open for discussion.
If you appreciate what we do and feel strongly about impartial local journalism, then please become a member of Shetland News by either making a single payment, or setting up a monthly, quarterly or yearly subscription.
Already a member? Sign in to hide this message.
