Rob Elkin remembers his first days working at Oxford's Rose Hill and Littlemore Sure Start family centre. 'My job was to try to encourage men in. To start with, there were so few men here that the reaction tended to be, wow, a man! Not any more. Now no-one gives them a second glance.'
His appointment was the result of an increasing awareness at the centre that, while women and children were very regular attenders, men were not catered for, and indeed might feel uncomfortable at encroaching on such female-dominated terrain.
Sure Start co-ordinator Patricia Scott recalls, 'Traditionally, family centres have been very female oriented, staffed mainly by women and tending to attract women and their children, so not necessarily "men-friendly".
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