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An award-winning company which provides male mentoring for boys without fathers wants to launch in every UK school.

Lads Need Dads works with boys aged between 11 and 15 who grow up in fatherless homes and are at risk of offending, underachieving or mental health problems.

Having launched four years ago, it currently works in the Essex boroughs of Tendring and Colchester, but is now looking for funding so it can roll out nationally.

Its founder, Sonia Shaljean, told the Standard: “This is not a local issue, it’s international. If we want to address society’s problems, we want to do it everywhere.

“It will take a few years, but my goal is a Lads Need Dads programme in every single school.”

Citing London’s ongoing violent crimewave as one example of issues which can be caused by the absence of a father figure, she went on: “We see young men killed weekly in London and if you were to trace [the perpetrators'] backgrounds, a good amount of them will have grown up without a father at home."

According to the Prison Reform Trust, 76 per cent of men in prison in England and Wales had an absent father.

Ms Shaljean went on: “We could see society change in the next few years if we invest in our young men. Nothing else is working. If we can empower young men, society will be positively impacted.”

She pointed out: “We have got boys now going to university. Of the 16 we worked with on our pilot, 75 per cent are reunited with their fathers.”

Lads Need Dads - which was named the “family award” winner in last year’s Centre For Social Justice Awards - uses specially trained male volunteers to mentor boys through outdoor activities and teaching them life skills.

Mentors have done 18-month placements with more than 60 boys since the not-for-profit company started.

One of them is Brett Nelson, who said: “It helps them develop emotionally and you see them grow as individuals.

“When we went camping, some of them had never been camping before. But they realised they can face the challenge and succeed.

“The mums see it as well. One lad’s mum said she had her son back.”

Ms Shaljean, meanwhile, said not enough focus is given to prevention.

She said: “Lads Need Dads is about equipping and empowering the boys we work with. It’s about early intervention: getting to them before disruptive behaviour, underachieving or mental health problems can develop.

“There’s little else out there to prevent these things, it’s all about response.”

Ms Shaljean said people across the country “have been asking when we are going to move to their area” and added: “We are at a critical point looking at where we can now go.

“It’s all about funding. If we get that funding, it will hopefully evolve.”