COACHEE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Part A: Before We Work Together

This page tells you plainly what coaching with Steady Fatherhood is, what it isn't, and what I ask of you. It takes about five minutes to read. At the end you'll be asked to confirm you've understood it. Please read it properly: it's here so you can start with your eyes open.

1. What This Is

Coaching is one-to-one conversations, by video or phone, about fatherhood and the man you are inside it.

I mainly ask questions. Coaching works on how you see your situation and what you do about it, and the answers have to be yours to be of use.

Sometimes I'll offer something: an observation, a book, a way of looking at the problem, a story from my own life or an anonymised one from another man I've worked with. These are offers, not instructions. Use them, test them against your own life, or ignore them. The decisions in your life stay yours.

There are no right or wrong answers in a session, only honest and dishonest ones. You may need a minute or more to think. That's fine.

2. What This Is Isn’t

  • Therapy. Coaching sits apart from counselling, psychotherapy and other mental health treatment, and works alongside them rather than in their place. My training is in coaching. Treating trauma, addiction, depression, anxiety or any other mental illness requires a qualified, licensed professional.

  • A crisis service. Emergencies belong with the emergency services. If you need urgent help, see "If you need help now" below.

  • Professional advice. Medical, legal, financial, and custody or parenting-arrangement questions belong with a qualified professional, and that is where I will send you.

  • Couples or family work. I work with you alone, so I hear only your side of anything involving your partner or children, and a single side is only part of the picture.

  • A guarantee. Coaching can help, but outcomes vary, and what changes depends largely on what you do between sessions.

3. What May Come Up

Conversations about fatherhood can reach things you didn't plan to talk about, including but not limited to:

  • how you were fathered,

  • grief and/or resentment,

  • strain in your relationship,

  • a sense of having lost yourself along the way

That is part of this kind of work, and it can be uncomfortable.

You choose how far to go. You can pause, change the subject or stop at any time. If I think something has come up that needs more than coaching, I will say so, and I may suggest you speak to your GP or a therapist alongside our work or instead of it. Whether you do is your choice: I can suggest, and the decision stays with you. If I think coaching isn't the right support for you right now, I will tell you why and point you somewhere better suited.

4. If you need help now

Coaching is not a substitute for urgent support. If you are in crisis, or thinking about harming yourself or someone else, please use one of these first:

  • Immediate danger: 999

  • Urgent mental health help, not an emergency: NHS 111 (choose the mental health option, where available)

  • Samaritans, any time, free: 116 123

  • Shout, text support, any time: text SHOUT to 85258

5. Confidentiality

What you tell me stays between us - including anything disclosed in prior initial conversation - with these exceptions.

  • I will act if I believe you or someone else, including a child, is in imminent danger of serious harm. That may mean contacting emergency services or another appropriate person.

  • I may disclose information if I have serious concern for a child's welfare, if you tell me about a serious crime, or if I am legally required to, for example by a court order or under terrorism legislation.

Where I can, I will tell you before I do this. Otherwise, I will not share what you tell me with anyone.

Please Note: I may draw on what I learn in my work, fully anonymised and with nothing that could identify you, to inform conversations with other men. If you are not comfortable with this, tell me and I will not use your material in this way.