“My dad left home when I was 18 months old. Now I mentor boys without a father figure"

Sergeant Jamie Edwards grew up in a single-parent home after his dad left the family. Now a parent himself, Jamie volunteers to work with boys who have little or no contact with their fathers.

Jamie, who is part of our mental health partnership team, is a reading mentor with Lads Need Dads – an award-winning, community interest company whose programmes aim to help boys to reach their full potential, and support mothers and carers raising boys alone.

Reading mentors lead one-on-one sessions with boys during school time, sharing books and encouraging them to embrace reading, while developing emotional and communication skills.

The scheme has been widely praised by mums, teachers, and the boys themselves.

Jamie’s positive impact led to him winning the Millard Trophy for outstanding community work at the Essex Police Awards.

Lads Need Dads founder Sonia Shaljean said Jamie “had all the qualities and more” that she looks for in a mentor and joked she’d like to bottle Jamie and replicate him if she could.

Across the UK, 1.1m children are growing up without a father in their lives and 76% of the men in prison had an absent father.

Jamie was motivated to volunteer by his upbringing, and experiences as a custody sergeant where he regularly encountered men who lacked basic skills.

He said: “When I saw the advert for reading mentors, it resonated with me straight away as I come from a challenging background. My mum had me when she was very young, at 17. She had little support from her family. My dad left home when I was 18 months. I understand the issues people struggle with when they haven’t got a male role model in their lives.

“In custody, I saw men coming through the doors who were not in employment, had substance abuse issues, mental health concerns, and couldn’t read or write. This is not to say that women didn’t present with concerns, but the ability to read was rarely an issue with female detainees.”

Jamie said the mentoring sessions are not just about reading, but boosting the boys’ confidence and equipping them with skills that can help them negotiate difficult situations:

“It’s about making someone feel really important for an hour, like they’re the centre of your world, by listening to them and validating their experiences.

“One boy in particular was really quiet. I thought he’d take a while to open up but by the end of the sessions, I couldn’t get a word in. We both shared an interest in space and he was quoting all the facts back to me that we’d spoken about in the first 12 weeks. It was lovely to see how he’d soaked it all up and enjoyed it.

“In the first sessions with another boy, he told me he was self-diagnosing as having anger management issues, and that gave us an immediate conversation about why he felt that way and what we could do about it.

“By the end of the sessions, he was doing breathing exercises and counting to three before he reacted, but most importantly, he understood why he was feeling that way and that he could deal with those feelings without resorting to violence. That was invaluable and really rewarding to see.”

Having grown up without his dad, Jamie knows the huge responsibility it places on mums, and the impact it has when a child only hears one voice at home. He hopes by giving the boys another role model who has been in the same position themselves, it will help them better understand their own emotions:

“As a man, you bring a different perspective. In every situation when I’ve worked with one of these lads, the mum is there doing an amazing job but they can’t carry out both roles.

“As a male role model, having been through it before, you look at managing anger, understanding emotions, talking about how you feel and why you feel that way. I felt that was a different conversation I was able to have with these boys.”

Lads Need Dads are one of more than 100 organisations in the county who have received funding from the Essex Community Foundation through the Essex Police Proceeds of Crime Scheme which redistributes money confiscated from criminals. Click on the link to read more.

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