Fathers Anonymous Support Groups
What is a Fathers Anonymous Support Group?
Fathers Anonymous hosts monthly support group meetings where fathers can openly discuss issues like custody disputes, mental health challenges, and co-parenting difficulties. These meetings foster a sense of brotherhood and provide a judgment-free environment for sharing stories and strategies. If you’re interested in getting a monthly invitation, sign up above! If you want to know more, keep reading below or reach out to us at https://www.facebook.com/FathersAnon , or info@FathersAnon.org , or through the contact form at the bottom of our home page https://www.fathersanon.org
Why should I join or be interested?
Facing complex trauma from family court or separation often feels isolating. Yet, despite going through the most challenging trial of our life, we’re reluctant to seek support; sometimes no one even understands where we’re coming from. The groups offer a welcoming space to share stories or anecdotal advice, heal, and rediscover purpose through connection, no admission of need required—just show up-no strings attached. We also direct interested members toward advocacy to channels their struggles into meaningful impact, empowering them to reclaim their strength. Joining is a simple step to transform pain into purpose without any pressure. Often times, after you’ve attended one of our groups you’ll have made a couple new friends that you can keep in touch with. Eventually, our aim is to have some of these in-person in a town near you! (See disclaimer)
Will this hurt my case? Am I safe to share?
We encourage everyone that joins to be as anonymous as they need to be and we also advise participants to not incriminate themselves or share personally identifiable information. We strictly monitor for privacy discrepancies and are prepared to appropriately deal with them (as noted in our disclaimer we send out) but remind everyone that they are in control of what/how much they share.
Who can join?
Anyone can join: sons, daughters, brothers, mothers, spouses, cousins, and etc. Occasionally, we may have some fathers that do not feel safe/comfortable sharing in mixed-gender meetings, as some matters can be very personal; we will accommodate these fathers if notified well in advance because they are the core of who we aim to support. We do welcome all individuals, ideas, perspectives, and conversations that may be contrary to our positions because the path forward requires us to all work together for the betterment of our children. However, if at any point a host believes and/or the group collectively feels that a participant is subverting the support being offered or is generally malicious or disruptive, we will remove the participant from the meeting so that those we aim to support get what they came for.
Why aren’t the meetings just published for anyone to join?
In the spirit of privacy and group size, we like to be able to control what we can; we randomize the group meeting ID# for this purpose.
When are the meetings, how long are they, and what are they like?
The meetings are held monthly but days/dates/times vary month to month to accommodate both the volunteers and the varying schedules fathers have; however, if we get more volunteers to help host then we’ll able to set more predictable dates and times to offer more than one a month!
The meetings usually last about 1.5hrs and are anywhere from 3-8 folk in the groups. We set the ground rules, introduce ourselves, pick a topic or two, go around the group to give everyone a chance to speak (if they wish), then we open the floor, the facilitators find positive takeaways or goals to sum up the meeting, and then usually we’ll formally conclude the meeting but have general hangout afterwards for as long as anyone wants! We’ve held a few volunteer-only ones that we’ve recorded to share; some are available on the following sites:
https://www.youtube.com/@fathersanonymous
https://www.facebook.com/FathersAnon/videos
https://locals.com/fathersanonymous/feed