Building a theory of change to guide fatherhood programming to prevent family violence: a comparison of two programs
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Fatherhood programs have increasingly been recognized as a promising approach to prevent violence against women and children (VAWC), yet there remains limited synthesis across programs to clarify the core components that drive change. Most existing studies focus on individual program evaluations. Identifying shared principles or pathways can inform broader implementation and scale. To address this gap, this analysis identified program elements that effectively engage fathers to reduce VAWC by conducting a case analysis of two evidence-based fatherhood programs, Bandebereho and REAL (Responsible, Engaged, and Loving) Fathers, and presenting a joint Theory of Change (TOC). METHODS: Programs were identified through a rapid review of evidence on fatherhood violence prevention programs and selected for their engagement of fathers, published evaluations with positive effects in reducing violence against women and children, adaptation and scale-up in a low resource setting, and having at least one available representative. Authors met regularly over 18-months conducting a desk review of program documentation, building understanding on program strategies and evidence, discussing similarities and differences between the programs, and identifying key elements. Analysis was collated in an excel matrix and utilized to create a pictorial TOC which was reviewed and validated by researchers and implementers from each program. RESULTS: The TOC highlights program principles, key stakeholders, training, program components, change catalysts, and intermediate outcomes on the pathway to impact. Despite being developed in unique contexts by different teams, programs displayed strikingly similar components and pathways of change leading to measured outcomes demonstrating positive impacts on prevention of violence against women and children. CONCLUSIONS: This TOC reflects evidence-based insights into the core components and pathways through which fatherhood programs may reduce violence against women and children. Although developed from two rigorously evaluated programs, the shared elements identified can serve as a foundation for future research and program development. This initial framework can help guide intervention design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation to promote effectiveness and sustainability in future violence prevention initiatives that engage fathers. Further testing and validation across diverse contexts are needed to assess the theories broader relevance.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.034 | 0.045 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.005 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.005 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".