SUMMARY
“The issue is so important, violent parenting has serious consequences – interventions should not be delayed if there is some evidence that it will be impactful.”
Child Health and Development Centre (CHDC) is a department under the College of Health Sciences, School of Medicine, Makerere University. The department promotes the wellbeing of children and women in Uganda through multidisciplinary research, training and strengthening of partnerships.
In collaboration with the University of Glasgow, CHDC has been developing the Parenting for Respectability (PfR) programme since 2013; a community-based parenting programme for the early prevention of violence against children and gender-based violence.
The programme’s origin as a home grown evidence based intervention, its demonstrated impact in improving parenting skills, and its successes in involving fathers, and parental couples in addressing spousal relationships, generated relevant interest from key stakeholders across Uganda, including the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development (MGLSD).
The fact that violence against children and gender-based violence across the country are wide spread made it clear there was a huge need for the programme to be scaled up. CHDC was aware that, for the problem to be truly challenged effectively, cultural and societal norms needed to be addressed, with a range of stakeholders involved over a prolonged period of time.
CHDC partnered with Spring Impact to develop a clear plan and approach to scale, focusing on the key changes that would help them overcome challenges and scale up the PfR programme effectively, including:
- Changing the mindset about the level of evidence required to scale up
- Identifying the essential components of the intervention and the systems required to scale up
- Rethinking and understanding the role of the organisation and other stakeholders at scale
Read the case study to learn more about the key lessons gathered on CHDC’s journey to impact at scale so far.
Transition to scale support from Spring Impact to CHDC was made possible with funding by Oak Foundation.