Parenting programmes must meet national standards, gender ministry warns
“Most practitioners are relying on experiential evidence where they say, ‘I know that this thing works, I’ve been doing it, and people have been telling me it works.’ But we can go beyond that level, and this is the purpose of this course,” Prof Siu said.
Lucy Otto, Assistant Commissioner of Family Affairs in the Department of Culture and Family Affairs speaking. (Credit: Violet Nabatanzi)
Organisations implementing parenting programmes have been urged to use evidence-based interventions and comply with national standards set for such programmes.
Lucy Otto, assistant commissioner for family affairs at the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development (MGLSD), said the ministry, in partnership with Makerere University Child Health and Development Centre (CHDC), had developed national standards that organisations must meet before developing or implementing parenting programmes.
“For you to say tomorrow that we are developing or implementing a parenting programme, the first step is to measure it against the eight standards,’’ she said.
Otto said organisations implementing parenting programmes at district level have a responsibility to ensure that only evidence-based interventions are implemented.
She was speaking on September 14, 2026, at Makerere University during the opening of a three-month course on “The Science of Designing, Adaptation and Implementation of Evidence-Based Parenting Interventions.”
The training, which is for the fourth cohort, attracted 70 practitioners.
The course was organised by CHDC in partnership with the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development (MGLSD) and members of the Parenting Agenda Consortium.
Prof. Godfrey Siu, Director of Makerere University CHDC, explained that evidence-based parenting programmes are interventions that have been evaluated and assessed through research to establish whether they work.
He said practitioners designing such programmes must first establish the situation before introducing an intervention, including assessing the level of a particular parenting practice they intend to change
Prof. Siu further explained that the difference between the situation before and after the intervention provides evidence of whether the programme has achieved the intended change.
He noted that there are different forms of evidence, including data generated through research, observations and testimonies from people who have benefited from an intervention. However, he cautioned that testimonies without supporting data provide weaker evidence.
Prof. Godfrey Siu speaking during the first day of the three-month course on “The Science of Designing Adaptation and implementation of Evidence-Based Parenting Interventions” organised by Makerere University’s Child Health and Development Centre (CHDC) in partnership with the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development. (Credit: Violet Nabatanzi)
“Most practitioners are relying on experiential evidence where they say, ‘I know that this thing works, I’ve been doing it, and people have been telling me it works.’ But we can go beyond that level, and this is the purpose of this course,” Prof Siu said.
The executive director of Family Life Network, Eng. Stephen Langa, said it is important for the nation to prioritise marriage, family and parenting, adding that the public should treat these matters as a national priority and a national emergency
According to Langa, marriage, family and parenting are governed by principles that should not be ignored or left entirely to individual preferences
He said marriage, which he described as the foundation of both family and parenting, should be treated as a lifelong commitment.
“Marriage is not ‘Let me experiment with this’ or ‘If this man is disturbing my head, I am out of here.’ People are playing with marriage,” he said
Langa said the increasing breakdown of marriages has consequences that extend beyond couples to children and the wider community
He argued that many social problems can be linked to broken families and poor parenting.