Male Psychology Section Conference 2023

Mary Curnock Cook - The hidden scandal of male underachievement in education

Mary Curnock Cook will take a tour through the evidence of educational achievement comparing males and females at various stages in the education journey.  She will also look at background characteristics such as socio-economic status, geography, and special needs as well as patterns by subjects and qualification types, seeking to prompt a discussion about why such disparities between the sexes exist and what can be done to change this. 

Bio

Mary Curnock Cook is an independent education expert serving in a non-executive capacity on a number of Boards.

From 2010-2017, Mary was Chief Executive of UCAS. Earlier in her career she held executive and non-executive positions in the education, hospitality, food and biotech sectors.

As a NED with Pearson Education, Mary chairs its Qualifications Committee and also chairs the governing body of the Dyson Institute. She is a non-exec Director at the Student Loans Company, the London Interdisciplinary School, the Student Room and Education Cubed, and a Trustee  at the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI).  She has the role of Network Chair for Emerge Education, the leading edtech investor in Europe. 

In 2021, Mary took on the Chair of the UPP Foundation Student Futures Commission, set up to ensure successful student futures following the pandemic. She is a regular speaker and commentator on HE policy and practice and a recognised champion of the student interest. 

Mary has an MSc from London Business School and was awarded an OBE in 2000, and a CBE in 2020 for services to further and higher education. She is an honorary Fellow of Birkbeck and Goldsmiths and has an honorary doctorate from the University of Gloucestershire.

Ben Hine - Balancing Solutions in Family Court: Addressing the Emotional Crisis of Separated Fathers

Amid the alarming statistic that 800,000 UK residents contemplate suicide annually, separated men emerge as an especially vulnerable group. The stark reality reveals that for men under 50, suicide stands is the leading cause of death, with an 11-fold risk escalation post-separation. In this keynote, Professor Ben Hine will share results from his pioneering study he conducted in 2022, sponsored by the Woodward Charitable Trust, and explore the emotional tumult fathers face post-separation, intensified by constrained child access and prevailing societal biases.

This talk will also illuminate the often overlooked challenges of fathers, emphasizing the dire lack of supportive mechanisms and the increased invisibility faced by male victims of domestic violence. The grim consequence is a surge in suicides, which not only claims the fathers' lives but also leaves indelible scars on the children left behind.

The session will underscore the pressing need for more balanced solutions in the family court system. By championing better support for separated fathers and confronting harmful stereotypes, we can ensure fathers maintain their pivotal roles in their children's upbringing, irrespective of marital standing. Recognising and mitigating the long-term ramifications of their tragic absence is pivotal to safeguarding our next generation and crafting a more compassionate society.

Sonia Shaljean - The Battleground of fatherlessness: its impact – the barriers – the way forward

Sonia Shaljean is an experienced and passionate social entrepreneur, practitioner and founder of the multi-award-winning project, Lads Need Dads https://ladsneeddads.org/   Her rich and valuable 22 years’ experience within the fields of domestic abuse, substance misuse, offending behaviour, homelessness, and complex families is what led to her devising and founding Lads Need Dads in 2015, the only long-term early intervention project in the UK that works with boys with absent fathers. 

Sonia has appeared in the national media, given evidence at Parliamentary select committees and the All Party Parliamentary Group for Men and boys. Sonia is also a long standing Trustee with the Men and Boys Coalition, a national charity which highlights and tackles issues where the needs of men and boys are unmet. Sonia is passionate about early intervention and equipping and empowering boys and young men to be the best they can be. She believes if we invest in boys and young men, then everybody benefits, including women and girls.

Sonia will share some of her insights of her past 8 years of being on the Lads Need Dads ‘mission field’, what she sees are some of the barriers and what needs to shift in order to be able to help one of the most misunderstood, high risk and vulnerable client groups in our society, a demographic which Sonia believes, gets very little air-time or acknowledgement, ‘fatherless boys’.

Sonia is married to Joel to whom she has three sons aged 18, 20 and 23. She hails from the North of England.