Social Change Communication

Social and behavior change communication (SBCC), which uses communication to positively influence the social dimensions of health and well-being, is an important strategy for improving health services at the provider level. As community health workers (CHWs) play an increasingly important role in providing health services, there is also an increasing focus on to how to use SBCC strategies to build CHWs’ capacity to offer quality services to the community members they serve. A key step in designing and implementing effective SBCC programs for CHWs is understanding the barriers and facilitators that effect CHWs in providing these services. The aim of this literature review is to examine the barriers and facilitators to CHW service provision in three areas: knowledge and competency barriers in which CHWs lack the skills and knowledge to provide services, structural and contextual barriers in which systemic and environmental factors influence CHWs’ ability to provide services, and motivational barriers in which social norms and attitudes that effect CHWs willingness to provide services. In all three areas, findings revealed that CHWs face significant barriers,ranging from lack of materials and high workloads to ingrained attitudes and insufficient training. The results and recommendations in this paper can be used to anticipate ...

The first International SBCC Summit took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in February 2016 and was designed to bring together the global community of social and behavior change communication (SBCC) organizations, professionals and researchers to advance the practice of SBCC in health. 17 of the talks and keynote speeches from the Summit have now been uploaded by the Health Communication Capacity Collaborative and can be viewed online via You Tube ...

This Community Video for Nutrition Guide is a joint product of SPRING and Digital Green (DG), an international nongovernmental organization (NGO) registered in the United States and India. This guide is based on our organizations' combined experience in implementing a proof of concept project between January and October 2013, formally known as the SPRING/DG Collaboration and Feasibility Study. This 10-month project focused on integrating content on high-impact maternal, infant, and young child nutrition (MIYCN) practices, including information on key hygiene-related behaviors, into the existing DG community-led video project, which is predominantly focused on promoting improved agricultural practices among small-scale and marginal women farmers. The target audience was pregnant women and/or mothers with children under the age of two participating in existing self-help groups (SHGs) in 30 villages in two blocks of Keonjhar District of Odisha, India. The SHGs also included a wider representation of female community members, who were targeted as key influencers for the recommended behaviors. Given that the target audience included a large number of influencers that wouldn’t be adopting the practices themselves, the project not only tracked adoptions, but also promotions of MIYCN behaviors. The guide is specifically intended to provide organizations, projects, and practitioners interested in ...

Evidence suggests that simply increasing knowledge and awareness of good nutrition practices rarely leads to sustained behavior change, nor is sustained change in nutrition behavior likely to be achieved through a single activity. Several specific behaviors or practices impact nutritional status during the critical first 1,000 days (pregnancy to age two), while complex, contextual determinants also influence individual decisions to consider, test, adopt and sustain a given behavior or practice. The field of Social and Behavior Change Communication (SBCC) is a collection of approaches and tools informed by behavioral theories and used to design public health interventions. This review, part of a broader effort by SPRING to support governments and other stakeholders in their delivery of high impact nutrition practices, provides a summary of peer-reviewed evidence regarding the effectiveness of SBCC approaches to increase the uptake of three key nutrition behaviors: women's dietary practices during pregnancy and lactation, breastfeeding practices, and complementary feeding practices. SBCC interventions have been broadly categorized into three areas: interpersonal communication; use of media; and community/social mobilization. This review also identifies gaps in the evidence and recommendations for further areas of study. This review includes a total of 91 studies identified using the Ovid MEDLINE database ...

In 2014, there were 25.8 million people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, more than half of them women. Several studies have reported that girls’ and women’s risk of HIV infection is associated with gender inequality and violence. Harmful gender norms can lead to risky behaviors, violence, substance abuse, pursuit of multiple sexual partners, and domination of women. These norms affect not only men and women but also families and communities. This technical brief describes the elements of programmatic approaches to strengthen community platforms to address gender equality and harmful gender norms. It draws examples from successful community platforms for addressing GBV and more specifically, from the SASA! program in Uganda designed by Raising Voices ...

This technical resource guide, along with the complemenary technical brief, is designed to build the capacity of development practitioners working in nutrition and food security to plan, implement, and evaluate gender-sensitive SBC programming in order to improve nutritional outcomes for pregnant and lactating women (PLW) and children under two. It does this by providing an overview, rationale, critical actions, best practices, resources, and tools for integrating gender-sensitive SBC into project activities. The technical resource guide seeks to achieve three main goals: Increase the reader's knowledge about the importance of gender-sensitive SBC programming in nutrition and food security programs/projects; Strengthen the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation (M&E), and documentation of gender-sensitive projects and gender mainstreaming of organizations to reduce gender gaps in nutrition outcomes; and Share resources and tools to support gender-sensitive SBC programming ...

This publication aims to to build the skills of community-level workers, such as community development agents, community health workers, and agriculture extension agents, so that they can be more effective behavior change promoters in their communities. The lessons are generic rather than sector specific and cover skills such as communication and storytelling with the aim of  helping development workers become more effective as an agent of behavior change ...

Carried out in English and Nepali, and operating from 1 June to 27 August, social media monitoring was part of ACAPS support to the Nepal Earthquake Assessment Unit. Insights gained through social media (mainly Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and blogs) and national media monitoring were intended to feed into the “Communication with Communities” (CwC) project. Issues of main interest were:  needs, concerns, developing trends and emerging risks among the effected population; and  conversations related to the quality and accessibility of aid. This document summarises the experiences of the pilot social media monitoring project set up to following the 25 April earthquake in Nepal, and draws out key lessons learned and recommendations. It was informed by a lessons learned workshop in Nepal as well as interviews and email exchanges with members of the project and external recipients of project’s reports. Written by Timo Lüge, the lead consultant responsible for the project, this is not an independent evaluation of the project ...

As part of the International Year of Soils, the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) is partnering with the Office for Corporate Communication of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to help with the production of 80 audio pieces by producers and community radio journalists in an effort to engage discussion, improve public education and encourage the sharing of scientific knowledge on the topic of environment, climate change, food security, agriculture, sustainable development, resilience and economical, cultural and political issues related to soils. From March to December 2015, two productions a week will be featured on AMARC's and FAO's website. This audio series aims to illustrate how different community interact and deal with issues related to soils. AMARC and FAO wishes to share the communities' voices and help them resonate on an international level ...

Updated for 2015, this social media toolkit has sample messages, blog ideas, and resources to help celebrants and handwashing champions spread the word about the annual Global Handwashing Day (15 October) ...

Participatory Theatre Gains Momentum, New Vision and Renewed Focus Workshop Charts a Path for Strengthening Participatory Theatre as a cross-cutting Communication for Development Platform LUSAKA, Zambia, 16 July 2015 (UNICEF) – More than 70 participants from 18 countries -- across six continents -- gathered here last week to share, learn, and sharpen strategies on how participatory theatre can engage communities to claim their rights and address specific development and humanitarian challenges. The seven-day workshop closed over the weekend in a ceremony with representation from Zambia’s Deputy Minister of Tourism and Arts, Hon. Esther Banda, MP, Chairman of the National Arts Council, Mulenga Kwepepe and senior UNICEF officials. Throughout the week, workshop participants deliberated on principles and standards for raising the quality of practice. These were captured in a Lusaka Declaration outlining detailed commitments of theatre practitioners for using participatory theatre as an approach for community engagement, behaviour change and social transformation. “Participatory Theatre can be a potent medium to address power imbalances in communities which prevent them from fulfilling their basic rights. It can be applied in conflict-affected settings to address underlying causes of tensions and build social cohesion; in post emergency situations to help reduce trauma and in development ...