Executive Summary

Witnessing and experiencing violence and lack of engagement in early childhood play impedes children’s healthy development and learning. It inhibits positive relationships, causes low self-esteem and emotional distress, and can lead to self-harm and aggressive behavior in later stage of a child's life or adulthood. Young families across Uganda need strategies that simultaneously transform negative social norms on parenting, reduce violence and promote healthy child development.

The Responsible, Engaged, and Loving Fathers (REAL Fathers) program is an evidence-based, community-led mentoring intervention designed to reduce intimate partner violence (IPV) and violence against children, while enhancing early childhood development and learning through play. The program specifically targets young fathers aged 18–25 with children aged 0–3 years. Young fathers in this age group are at a pivotal stage of life, transitioning into new responsibilities. This makes them particularly open to adopting positive changes and new ways of life, which facilitates their transformation into REAL Fathers. Engaging these fathers meaningfully helps break the intergenerational cycle of violence and establishes a solid foundation for early childhood development and thriving family environments.

The REAL Fathers program aims to achieve the following specific goals:

1. Combat Intimate Partner Violence: Decrease the incidence of intimate partner violence by promoting behavior change interventions and fostering healthy, non-violent conflict resolution skills among young fathers and their partners.

2. Encourage Positive Parenting Practices: Support young fathers in adopting nurturing and responsive parenting practices, including promoting early learning and ensuring the well-being of their children through activities such as immunization and family planning.

3. Promote Early Learning and Play: Enhance young fathers’ involvement in early childhood development through active participation in play-based learning, feeding, caregiving, and positive discipline to support children’s growth and development.

4. Foster Healthy, Gender-Equitable Relationships: Build positive and equitable relationships between young couples by challenging harmful gender norms, increasing mutual respect, and promoting shared responsibilities in the household and child-rearing.

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