A collaboration between IntraHealth and ideas42 funded by the Hewlett Foundation, the SupCap project was part of the USAID Regional Health Integration to Enhance Services in Eastern Uganda (RHITES-E) Activity. It focused on improving the health and well-being of women of reproductive age in eastern Uganda and specifically on increasing uptake of postpartum family planning.

Using a four-stage behavioral science methodology to co-design solutions with community members, the SupCap team developed an intervention package that included the following components:

• Interactive game – played by male partners of postpartum women and facilitated by local village health teams
• Child spacing/referral card – received by game participants to be filled out with their partners and taken to a health facility 
• Text messages – sent to game participants, village health teams, and health workers.

The intervention package increased couples’ communication about family planning, increased contraceptive uptake, and increased knowledge about contraceptive methods. Highlights of results included:

• Engaged over 20,500 male partners of postpartum women, village health teams, and health workers through the educational game and child-spacing planning cards, which taught players about the benefits of family planning. 
• Contributed to 61.5% of total postpartum family planning uptake in the six project districts. 
• Tracked individuals who brought a child spacing planning card to the health facility: 100% received family planning counseling and 95% chose a method.

Five IntraHealth teams also participated in a series of behavioral science boot camps, culminating in behavioral science projects to increase human resources for health reporting to inform management decisions, improve adolescent long-acting reversible contraception uptake, increase voluntary medical male circumcision services, improve the documentation process for progress of induced labor, and increase partners/spouses attending antenatal care visits.