Wanting to challenge the received “wisdom” that fathers are “hard to reach” I invited a bunch of guys to an early evening group. Four came consistently. Another four (if I remember rightly) expressed interest for another time. They “formed, stormed, normed, and performed” but mainly formed and normed. Without knowing it I had basically created a focus group and, as there was little likelyhood of repeating the exercise, this was more like qualitative research than a pilot. I felt that they were not “hard to reach” at all – not if you were prepared to put in a tiny bit of effort.

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