Fatherhood: Parenting Programmes and Policy - A Critical Review of Best Practice

This document reviews policies and programmes that promote or facilitate the involvement of fathers and father-figures from the prenatal period through the first eight years of their children’s lives. It aims to establish evidence of these programmes' potential to impact family violence, child abuse, or children's health or learning outcomes. The executive summary and full report are produced in association with Promundo and funded by the Bernard Van Leer Foundation.

The researchers found these challenges of establishing an evidence base:

• Few parenting interventions address father engagement or men's roles in parenting and/or child maltreatment.
• Few have undergone systematic and robust evaluation.
• There is a challenge in identifying rigorous impact-evaluated programmes from case studies in the Global South.
• In the Global South, while there is much information on evaluated interventions with men promoting reproductive health and preventing HIV transmission and violence against women, there has been little evaluated practice in the area of engaging men as fathers and caregivers.

Among the 35 programmes identified (20 explored in some detail), the following are among those selected for recognition:

• Early Head Start (EHS) - United States (US) - "a three-pronged approach: to increase economic self-sufficiency and health of families; monitor and enhance child development; and support and enhance parenting skills. In a sample of 3,000 children and their parents, it was found that fathers who participated in EHS were significantly less likely to use harsh discipline than fathers in the control group. EHS fathers were also less intrusive and more easily engaged by their children (who were also more attentive) than fathers in the control group."
• The Father Support Programme (FSP) by ACEV (Turkey) - "Topics addressed include child development, fathers’ experiences of being fathered, positive discipline, the importance of play and improving communication in families. Fathers who participated in the quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the programme showed an increase in time spent with children, used less shouting and harsh discipline, became more involved in parenting and in housework (according to mothers), and showed improved communication with and greater respect towards their wives."
• Becoming a Family Project, School Children and their Families Project, and the Supporting Father Involvement Project (US) - Randomised controlled trials showed that 'involving both parents in preventive interventions to be more beneficial than working with just one. Changes at home were made more quickly and gains were maintained when both parents were engaged; the couples intervention was more successful than the men-only intervention in sustaining fathers’ participation. The [project researchers] believe that ‘the question is not whether to intervene with fathers or with couples but, in either approach, how to involve both parents.'"
• Écoles des Maris ('Schools for Husbands') (Niger) - This project "aims to transform the attitudes and behaviour of whole communities by training maris modèles ('model husbands') to spread the word about the benefits of using local health services. Whilst we do not have rigorous evaluation evidence of the effectiveness of École des Maris, testimony from the men involved, and from pregnant women and new mothers, indicates that the scheme has transformed attitudes towards healthcare, as well as substantially increasing the rates of attended labour in a country where maternal and child death rates at birth remain high."

Because parenting leave design (time guaranteed by law for parents to be absent from work when a child is born to them) has been identified as "one of the few policy tools that are available to governments to directly influence behaviour among parents", studies of parental leave policies are analysed. Positive results include:

1. Higher levels of contact with children, should mothers and fathers subsequently separate;
2. Fathers taking an increased role in caretaking later; and
3. Positive health outcomes for men and increased breastfeeding among mothers.

The paper concludes with recommendations for future research, policy and programme design and evaluation, including:

• Carry out pilot research to engage men in existing, large-scale programme areas in the Global South.
• Choose a multi-pronged, evaluated approach to achieving attitudinal and behavioural change.
• Involve fathers early on. "This often requires changing the mindset of health and other providers to sensitize them to the value of engaged fatherhood and caregiving by fathers. Parental leave policies, which enable and encourage men to play an important role in their children‘s lives from the beginning, will clearly be significant here."
• Engage fathers in existing family support, child development and mother child health (MCH) programmes.
• Use a targeted versus universal intervention. For example, in establishing parenting groups, develop an open route to attendance starting from pregnancy, whereby all fathers and mothers-to-be are invited to join the group, and health professionals operate at the service of the group rather than teaching the group.