Bringing Forward to 2025: Programme Development and Expansion

Evolution of the Programme

Over the past several years, Fathers For Families has continued to strengthen and refine its approach in response to the needs of fathers, whanau, tamariki, and the communities we serve.

What began as a shorter intervention programme has since developed into a comprehensive 14-week Men’s Behavioural Change Programme: Te Ara Poutama o te Matua Mārama — The Vision of the Father.

The framework and structure of this programme were shaped through lived experience and a personal journey of transformation. It reflects the process of a man confronting the realities of family harm, recognising the impact of his actions, and choosing a different pathway for himself, his partner, his children, and future generations.

This lived-experience foundation has helped create a programme that speaks authentically to the men who participate today. It allows fathers to engage with material that is real, relatable, and grounded in the challenges many of them have faced.

Feedback from participants, community stakeholders, and partner agencies also highlighted the need for broader and deeper support. Many fathers were not only dealing with behaviour change, but also with trauma, identity struggles, disconnection, grief, shame, relationship breakdown, parenting challenges, and the need to rebuild trust.

In response, Fathers For Families refined the programme to include additional group engagement, peer support, reflective tools, and practical learning opportunities. These developments allow more time for meaningful reflection and deeper engagement with the underlying drivers of behaviour, identity, relationships, and fatherhood.

The newly formed programme is now structured around three identity-focused pathways:

Me as the Man
Understanding identity, trauma, values, emotional regulation, and personal responsibility.

Me as the Husband/Partner
Restoring trust, accountability, communication, empathy, and relational integrity.

Me as the Father
Strengthening fatherhood, presence, protection, guidance, and the nurturing of tamariki.

Together, these pathways guide participants through a process of personal reflection, behavioural transformation, relational restoration, and legacy-building.

At its heart, Te Ara Poutama o te Matua Mārama supports fathers to move from harm toward healing, from disconnection toward responsibility, and from survival toward purposeful leadership within their whanau.

Cultural, Spiritual, and National Framework Alignment

The Fathers For Families programme is guided by a strong foundation of cultural identity, lived experience, spiritual reflection, and national family violence prevention priorities. These frameworks shape both the philosophy of the programme and the way it is delivered in practice.

Together, they ensure that Te Ara Poutama o te Matua Mārama is not simply a behavioural change programme, but a transformational pathway that supports fathers to restore mana, rebuild relationships, and strengthen the safety and wellbeing of their whanau.

Te Huringa o te Ao:
Fathers For Families aligns with Te Huringa o te Ao through its focus on transformation, cultural identity, self-awareness, and reconnection to whanau and community.

The programme supports fathers to examine the beliefs, experiences, and behaviours that have shaped their lives, while encouraging them to take responsibility for the change required to restore healthier relationships.

Through this lens, transformation is understood as more than behaviour modification. It is a journey of identity, accountability, healing, and reconnection.

Te Aorerekura – The National Strategy to Eliminate Family Violence and Sexual Violence:
The programme aligns with Te Aorerekura by contributing to the national movement toward preventing family violence and strengthening whanau wellbeing.

Fathers For Families supports key strategic shifts by focusing on early intervention, community-led responses, collaboration across agencies, culturally grounded practice, and long-term behaviour change.

The programme recognises that reducing family harm requires more than individual change alone. It requires collective responsibility, strong relationships between services, and practical pathways that support fathers, partners, tamariki, and wider whanau toward safety and restoration.

Biblical Principles – The Fruit of the Spirit:
Fathers For Families also incorporates spiritual reflection grounded in Biblical principles, including the Fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

These values provide a moral and spiritual foundation for the development of character, humility, accountability, and relational responsibility.

Within the programme, fathers are encouraged to reflect on how these principles can guide their actions, strengthen their relationships, and support the rebuilding of trust within their families.

The spiritual foundation of the programme does not replace accountability; it strengthens it. Fathers are called to take ownership of their behaviour, practise self-control, and walk toward restoration with honesty, humility, and courage.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi Principles

Fathers For Families acknowledges Te Tiriti o Waitangi as a foundational framework for ethical, culturally responsive, and equitable practice in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The programme seeks to honour Te Tiriti by embedding principles that strengthen Maori participation, protect cultural identity, and support whanau-led pathways of restoration and wellbeing.

• Partnership
  Working collaboratively with Maori communities, whanau, kaupapa Maori services, and partner organisations to support shared decision-making and collective responsibility.

• Participation
  Ensuring Maori voices, perspectives, and lived experiences are actively reflected in programme development, delivery, evaluation, and continuous improvement.

• Protection
  Safeguarding Maori culture, tikanga, language, values, identity, and whanau connections within the design and delivery of services.

• Equity
  Reducing barriers to access and ensuring fathers and whanau receive support that is fair, culturally appropriate, and responsive to their circumstances.

• Options
  Providing pathways that reflect Maori perspectives, preferences, and models of wellbeing, while also recognising the diverse cultural identities of the fathers and families we serve.

• Active Protection
  Taking intentional and proactive steps to strengthen Maori wellbeing, improve outcomes, and address the impacts of intergenerational harm and systemic barriers.

• Rangatiratanga / Self-Determination
  Supporting Maori leadership, whanau voice, and the ability for communities to shape their own pathways of healing, restoration, and transformation.

• Manaakitanga
  Fostering care, respect, dignity, responsibility, and relational safety within all interactions between fathers, whanau, staff, agencies, and community partners.

Strengthening Fathers, Strengthening Whanau

Through its 14-week structure and integrated frameworks, Fathers For Families is better equipped to support fathers through a meaningful journey of accountability, healing, behavioural change, and relational restoration.

The programme supports fathers to:

• understand the impact of their behaviour on partners, tamariki, and whanau

• take responsibility for harm caused and commit to safer choices

• rebuild trust through consistency, honesty, and changed behaviour

• develop emotional awareness, self-regulation, and healthier communication

• strengthen their role as safe, present, responsible, and nurturing fathers

• reconnect with identity, values, faith, culture, and purpose

• contribute to safer homes and stronger whanau futures

By combining lived experience, cultural grounding, spiritual reflection, and structured behavioural change, Fathers For Families continues to walk alongside fathers as they restore relationships and build safer futures for their whanau.

“This framework is not theory written on paper. It is a pathway shaped through lived experience, strengthened through cultural and spiritual grounding, and refined through the journeys of the men who continue to walk it.”