Fathers Together podcast cover art

Fathers Together podcast

Fathers Together podcast

By: Dr. Anita Mehay & Professor Richard Watt with the Race Equality Foundation
Listen for free

About this listen

Fathers Together is a podcast about young dads, imprisonment, and what it means to hold onto love, identity, and hope in the toughest of places.


Hosted by Roifield Brown, this deeply human series shares the real stories of five fathers from racially minoritised communities who became dads young and served time behind bars. Through interviews, reflection, and expert insights, the podcast explores how they stayed connected to their children, what they lost, and what they’re fighting to rebuild.


From bedtime stories told over the phone to the emotional cost of silence and stigma, Fathers Together shines a light on voices too often left out of the conversation on prisons, parenting, and masculinity.


Developed in collaboration with the Race Equality Foundation and based on research led by Dr. Anita Mehay and Professor Richard Watt, this podcast is part of a wider NIHR-funded study working to co-design parenting support with fathers inside five English prisons.


The Fathers Together is hosted by Central North West London NHS Foundation Trust. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.



These are stories of rupture and repair. Of accountability and love. Of fatherhood behind bars — and what comes after.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Copyright 2025 The Race Equality Foundation, St George’s, University of London
Personal Development Personal Success Social Sciences
Episodes
  • EP - 5: Tamym, Love, resilience and a father’s return
    Oct 15 2025


    In this fifth and final episode of Fathers Together, we meet Tamym, who reflects on his life journey from childhood in Mauritius and England to imprisonment and the difficult work of rebuilding afterwards. He shares how struggles with cultural identity, a strained relationship with his father, and the pull of criminal associations led him into destructive choices.


    Prison was both transformative and deeply painful, marked also by the loss of his mother and fractured family ties. Tamym’s partner offers her perspective on raising their children and holding the marriage together through the separation. Together, they speak candidly about grief, resilience, and how a parenting programme helped them to rebuild their family life.


    Tamym’s story is one of endurance and return — finding strength in love, in fatherhood, and in the hope of creating something better for his family.

    Joining host Roifield Brown are Dr Anita Mehay, who leads the Fathers Together study, and Leandra Box, Deputy CEO of the Race Equality Foundation. They discuss the disproportionate impact of imprisonment on Black, Asian and racially minoritised families, and what this means for children and women left behind.


    Learn more and follow the study:

    Website: www.fatherstogether.co.uk

    Linkt.ee: https://linktr.ee/FathersTogether

    YouTube: @TogetherFathers


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Show More Show Less
    56 mins
  • EP – 4: Clifton, Cycles of loss and renewal
    Sep 15 2025

    In this fourth episode of Fathers Together, we meet Clifton, a father and entrepreneur whose life has been marked by both struggle and transformation. Growing up between Sierra Leone and the UK, Clifton speaks candidly about childhood pain, the absence of his father, and how unresolved hurt and ego pulled him into crime from a young age.

    He reflects on the cycles of arrest and imprisonment that followed, the painful distance this created with his daughters, and the weight of repeating the very absence he once endured. Yet fatherhood and a profound spiritual awakening became turning points. Today, Clifton runs a fashion brand named after his daughter and mentors others, determined to break generational patterns of harm and rebuild life on new terms.

    Joining host Roifield Brown are Dr Anita Mehay, who leads the Fathers Together study, and Leandra Box, Deputy CEO of the Race Equality Foundation. They discuss why reoffending rates remain so high among young adults in prison, the need for change in how prisons support fathers, and how adversities in childhood and communities shape resilience across generations.

    Learn more and follow the study:

    Website: www.fatherstogether.co.uk

    Linkt.ee: https://linktr.ee/FathersTogether

    YouTube: @TogetherFathers

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Show More Show Less
    38 mins
  • EP – 3: Kevin, Breaking the Silence of Being a Man
    Aug 15 2025

    In this third episode of Fathers Together, we meet Kevin who shares his deeply personal journey of growing up without a father figure, navigating fractured relationships, and facing the long shadow cast by prison.

    Kevin reflects on the emotional toll of incarceration, including the loneliness that followed his release and the stigma that still lingers—from strained family ties to barriers in employment and even opening a bank account. He speaks openly about the impact of childhood trauma, his efforts to rebuild family connections, and how he’s learned to find self-worth and healing from within.

    While Kevin’s relationships with his children and mother remain complex and distant, he shares how the Fathers Together group has become a rare space of emotional safety and kinship—offering him something he never had: a space to talk, reflect, and feel understood.

    Joining host Roifield Brown is Dr Anita Mehay, who leads the Fathers Together study. They discuss the lack of emotional spaces—especially in prison—for men to explore their emotions, the long-lasting effects of paternal absence, and why stereotypes around masculinity often prevent men from becoming the fathers they want to be. They also unpack how cycles of harm don’t follow a simple path but are deeply linked to broader adversities in children’s lives.

    Learn more and follow the study:

    Website: www.fatherstogether.co.uk

    YouTube: @TogetherFathers

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Show More Show Less
    40 mins
No reviews yet
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.