In celebration of International Men’s Day 2025, and to mark the launch of the government’s new Men’s Health Strategy, Leeds Dads held a Health Summit at Leeds Playhouse this evening. The event was part of Baby Week Leeds 2025.
Leeds Council’s Men’s Health Champion Councillor Paul Wray and key health bodies were in attendance along with a collection of Leeds Dads members who shared their experiences (and some pizza!) with men’s health from a Dad perspective.
“The Men’s Health Strategy is the first one of its kind in the UK” said Cllr Paul Wray “looking at that there was quite a bit about how we promote people who ask for help, how we get them into services and there is a whole piece of work there around how we encourage men how to talk positively about their health and engage with the services. Trying to get men to be open about their health and help them to understand that it’s a positive thing, not just for them personally but for their wider family. We’re trying to get rid of some of that cultural stigma around asking for help” I think we need to realise that Dads have an equal role in raising children and we need to make sure that when we are looking at providing services to a family that we actually ask the views of the Dad and we don’t automatically assume that the Mum is the only one responsible for parenting. We need to be better about asking for what Dads need. Leeds Dads is a fantastic charity, they have done huge work over the years giving a voice to fathers in the city and highlighting to us some important issues in terms of gender bias in some services, a lack of their voice being heard in policymaking and just being a space where Dads can come together, share experiences and get some peer to peer support. I think it’s really vital for what can be for some dads, a really lonely experience.”
Our Leeds Dads members shared their views on Men’s Health, expressing a wish for the available services to be better promoted and more accessible “…I didn’t know where to go or what to do!”
The Men’s Health Strategy for England is a policy paper which details the government’s 10-year vision for men’s health and the actions the government are taking now to improve the health and wellbeing of all men and boys in England.
Here’s Leeds Dads founder Errol Murray with his perspective on men’s health.
With our sincere thanks to Leeds Playhouse for hosting us.
