MenCare Brazil partner Equimundo, together with the Municipal Health Secretariat of Rio de Janeiro, conducted training workshops on the methodology of Program P: A Manual for Engaging Men in Fatherhood, Caregiving, and Maternal and Child Health between July and September. Program P provides a direct and targeted response to the need for concrete strategies to engage men in active fatherhood from prenatal care through delivery, childbirth, and their children’s early years. In total, 170 municipal health professionals attended these trainings in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Each series of workshops for health professionals was divided into three days.
The first day was devoted to challenging harmful gender norms, focusing on personal stories of fatherhood and the prevention of violence. The second day included training around family planning, the development of community mobilization activities to involve fathers, and a workshop on techniques for carrying babies in sling wraps, in partnership with the Sling-se project. The final day of the workshop series focused on the development of action plans to put strategies into practice to engage men in maternal, newborn, and child health in each health unit.
Together with the participants, Equimundo is now evaluating the impact of the training on changing attitudes and behavior related to gender norms, in order to gauge the effectiveness of this approach.