A groundbreaking father-daughter wellbeing initiative, headed by the University of Newcastle (UoN), is making its mark on a national level.
Daughters & Dads, the brainchild of Professor Phil Morgan, was honoured at the Engagement Australia 2025 Excellence Awards in Sydney during the week.
The program took out the Outstanding Engagement for Research Impact category.
Since its launch in 2015, more than 7,000 participants have experienced Daughters & Dads, a grassroots activity where they attend sessions focusing on physical endeavours; play sports such as cricket, basketball and football; develop social-emotional skills and overcome gender inequities while strengthening their own bonds.
“Empowering girls at a young age leads to better outcomes later in life, equipping the next generation of women to strive for their goals with their fathers as their advocates,” Professor Morgan said.
“Research suggests that up to 70% of dads only see themselves as an ‘extra set of hands’ when raising their daughters.
“They also discount their role in fostering their offsprings’ physical activity behaviours and social-emotional wellbeing.
“But, we know a strong connection between fathers and their daughters is associated with a huge array of enhanced outcomes for girls including better confidence, self-esteem, resilience and sporting ability.
“Dads typically bond with their children through an ‘activation relationship’ characterised by physical play that is stimulating, competitive and fun, usually through rough-and-tumble or sports skills.
“However, unfortunately, from age one, that relationship changes.
“Fathers are less likely to involve their daughters, compared to their sons, in this important physical play.
“As the years progress, they struggle to motivate them to be active [with them] and try different sports.”
Professor Morgan, a father of three daughters himself, and his team then developed the world-first Daughters & Dads.
“We found every program [available] was marketed towards, and only engaged, mums or parents in general,” he said.
“A lot of dads weren’t aware of the challenges young women might face.
“We can say ‘go girls, be strong, get out there’… but send them out into hostile territory without preparing them for consequences as girls where they face a whole range of biases and stereotypes.
“If they don’t have the resilience, persistence or critical thinking skills to know how to address that, then you’re setting them up to fail.
“Words like brave, strong and powerful are really good at instilling confidence in children.
“So, we need to bring balance to the types of terms and opportunities we provide our daughters.”
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