Peer-reviewed article
Engaged fatherhood and new models of “nurturing care”: Lessons learnt from Austria, Italy, Lithuania and Portugal
Tatiana Whately de Moura, Rachel Mehaffey, Annina Lubbock, Vilana Pilinkaitė Sotirovič, Anna Kirchengast et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This peer-reviewed study evaluates the PARENT project, an EU-funded pilot program implemented in Austria, Italy, Lithuania, and Portugal to prevent domestic violence and promote engaged fatherhood. The program trained social, educational, and health professionals and ran education groups for fathers using adapted curricula based on the internationally tested Program P methodology. The evaluation found promising impacts on the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of both professionals and parents, with a focus on promoting nurturing care during the first 1000 days of a child's life.
Key points
- The program trained social, educational, and health professionals as well as fathers and parents in four European countries
- The intervention was based on the internationally tested Program P methodology, adapted for European contexts
- Mixed-methods impact evaluations were conducted with both professionals and parents
- The pilot showed promising impacts on knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to engaged fatherhood and violence prevention
- Gender-synchronous father-focused training contributed to increased positive engagement of fathers during the first 1000 days of a child's life
Limitations
The document provides an overview of findings and lessons learned but does not provide detailed quantitative results, effect sizes, or statistical comparisons. The study focuses on pilot programs rather than large-scale implementation, limiting generalizability.
Abstract
Abstract Research on gender‐based violence highlights the need to engage men in prevention work through social change programs that present care as a powerful antidote to violence. Implementation of such programs worldwide provides many examples of how education and support for fathers and fathers‐to‐be can promote healthy masculinities and relationships with an intimate partner and their children. This article aims to explore the findings and lessons learned from the pilot of the European Union‐funded Promotion, Awareness Raising and Engagement of men in Nurture Transformations (PARENT) project (PARENT) which sought to develop and pilot curricula adapted from the internationally tested Program P methodology. The PARENT pilot worked in four European countries to provide training activities for social, educational, and health professionals, as well as education groups for fathers and parents, with the overarching goal of preventing domestic violence through the promotion of engaged fatherhood. By reporting the results from mixed‐methods impact evaluations of pilot programs conducted with professionals and parents, this article discusses how gender‐synchronous father‐focused training can contribute to a shift toward increased positive engagement of fathers during the first 1000 days of a child's life. The article conveys the pilot's promising impact on the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of professionals and parents, and it examines some of the key contextual factors, limitations, and implementation approaches that plausibly contributed to the PARENT pilot outcomes, with the aim to formulate useful considerations for future scale‐up efforts or the future implementation of similar programs to engage fathers in nurturing care and violence prevention.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Training for professionals and education groups for fathers and parents based on Program P methodology to promote engaged fatherhood, healthy masculinities, and violence prevention
- Population