Peppa Pig's Daddy Pig Supports Fathers' Story Week

Entertainment One is pleased to announce that Richard Ridings, the voice of Daddy Pig from Peppa Pig and arguably one of the best loved Dads on children's television, will be lending his support to Fathers' Story Week 2011 in association with Ladybird Books which is sponsoring the initiative.

In the run up to Father's Day, Daddy Pig will be utilised as the face of the campaign to encourage Primary schools, pre-schools and nurseries to sign up to the positive initiative which encourages fathers to take an interest in the education and literacy of their children. Ladybird Books is producing Read with Daddy Pig resources such as handy tips for reading with your children, activity sheets, bookmarks, reading certificates and stickers to help fathers make storytime piggy-tastic. The first 500 organisations to sign up will receive free Peppa Pig, Read with Daddy Pig bookmarks and stickers. All these resources will be available on the Fathers' Story Week website: www.fathersstoryweek.org

Richard Ridings will be attending a story telling session during Fathers' Story Week in June where he will read aloud from new Peppa Pig story book My Daddy and he will also be taking part in national media interviews to raise the profile of the campaign.

Fathers' Story Week will take place in the week leading up to Father's Day, from 13-19 June 2011. Organised by the Fatherhood Institute and Barnardo's, the week gives teachers and other family learning professionals free resources and fundraising activity ideas, to help them engage with fathers to become more involved in their child's education. Evidence shows that when dads are positively involved in their children's education, the children do better. Activities forming part of Fathers' Story Week 2011 include a nationwide paper aeroplane competition, a readathon and a dads-and-kids sporting challenge.
Click here to read the full article: http://www.booktrade.info/index.php/showarticle/33580

Storybook Dads - Danny's Story

Danny was able to reconnect with his children by sending them CDs and DVDs and by taking part in the Storybook Dads workshops at Dartmoor Prison.

When I came to prison all contact with my children was cut off. I’d always been very involved in their lives and so I found it really hard.

I know it was my own fault and that made it even harder. My ex-partner didn’t think I deserved to have contact with them so I never received a reply to my letters and I wasn’t allowed to speak to them on the phone. I was really sorry for letting them down and needed them to know I loved them and missed them so I them recorded a CD for them at Storybook Dads. I was nervous because my reading isn’t great, but I managed it. The CD was sent out and I waited and waited but I still didn’t hear anything back.

I did another CD and then I did a workshop where I wrote a story, typed it up and illustrated it. That was even harder because of my writing skills and also because I’d never used a computer before. I was really pleased with my book though and proud that I had been able to do it.
Click here to read the full article: http://www.storybookdads.co.uk/page86.html

New editing suite at HMP The Mount

At the end of 2010 I heard the news that the Belron World Trust Foundation had granted us funds to develop our Storybook Dads project. This was really exciting news for us at the Mount prison. Not only did it mean we would be able to replace our broken recording equipment and continue with our project, we also had enough funds to develop an editing suite and to run some writing workshops.

From speaking to Sharon Berry I knew that this was going to require a lot of hard work. At the time there were two of us on the Storybook Dads volunteer team. I knew that we needed to have more volunteers on board to undertake the amount of work required of this sort of project so I approached a friend, who I knew was seeking voluntary opportunities, she was keen to be involved and we began training. There are now three of us working on the project and we foresee that as the project develops it will provide opportunities for other volunteers to become involved – creating a positive volunteer culture is something that HMP the Mount has a good history of and is very proud of.
To read the full article, click here: http://storybookdads.blogspot.com/2011/04/new-editing-suite-at-mount-prison.html