How-To Guide for Social Network Diffusion Approaches to Overcome Social Obstacles to Family Planning Use

The Tékponon Jikuagou consortium prepared this guide to encourage others to adopt the package through social networks as a stand-alone initiative or as a supplement to their ongoing health and development programs in West Africa. The guide offers guidance for planning and implementing the five components of a social network diffusion package, and presents the tools, materials, guides and instructions that were developed, tested and used in Tékponon Jikuagou. Throughout, the text explain to the user what the team did and makes suggestions based on lessons learned and outcomes.

The guide is comprehensive — it contains everything needed to replicate the social networks diffusion package in the field — but it is not a rigorous set of instructions. Moreover,the guide focuses on the interface between field staff (called Facilitators) and community members: it assumes that the implementing organization has adequate management and evaluation structures in place to support this interface.

Source: Institute for Reproductive Health

Date of Publication: March 25, 2019

Elements of Family Planning Success Toolkit

This toolkit contains more than two dozen audio and video interviews with family planning experts, up-to-date background and reference materials, job aids and other tools, PowerPoint presentations, books, manuals, briefs, case studies, fact sheets, newsletters, pamphlets, posters, project reports, reviews, and teaching and training materials. Resources listed are from more than 80 organizations.

Source: Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs, FHI 360, ICF International, WellShare International

Date of Publication: March 25, 2019

ENA Training Guide for Health Workers – Handouts

The Essential Nutrition Actions (ENA) framework is an operational framework for managing the advocacy, planning and delivery of an integrated package of preventive nutrition actions encompassing infant and young child feeding (IYCF), micronutrients and women’s nutrition. Using multiple contact points, it targets health services and behavior change communication support to women and young children during the first 1,000 days of life – from conception through the first two years of life. ENA Health Worker Training Guide equips health service providers with the technical, action-oriented nutrition knowledge and counseling skills needed to support pregnant women, mothers with children under two years of age, and other key family members to adopt optimal nutrition practices. This course translates up-to-date international guidelines into action-oriented nutrition practices. Training handouts are distributed to participants at the beginning of the ENA training.

These handouts are designed to provide the heatlh worker with basic information about Essential Nutrition Actions.

Source: Helen Keller International, John Snow Inc.

Date of Publication: March 25, 2019

GREAT Community Action Cycle Implementation Guide

The Gender Roles, Equality and Transformations (GREAT) Project Community Action Cycle (CAC) Implementation Guide was developed to engage community leaders and mobilizers by facilitating a process that focuses on the relationship between gender inequality, gender-based violence, and sexual and reproductive health outcomes.

The CAC is a process of collective dialogue and action based on planning by communities. It engages community leaders and mobilizers by facilitating a process that focuses on the relationship between gender inequality, GenderBased Violence (GBV) and Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) outcomes. The CAC is a process of collective dialogue and action based on planning by communities who first define their current status, what changes they seek to achieve, and how to make this community change happen.

Source: Save the Children, Pathfinder

Date of Publication: March 25, 2019

GREAT Project How-to-Guide

The Gender Roles, Equality, and Transformations (GREAT) project (covered in a Health COMpass Spotlight) is an evidence-based international development intervention that succeeded in improving gender norms related to
sexual and reproductive health and gender-based violence in Northern Uganda. The GREAT model encompasses several components and places collaboration with local partners and the community at the center of the intervention. GREAT’s elements are tested, evidence-based, and scalable; its interventions are tailored to life stages within the broad category of ‘young people.’ GREAT is simple and low-cost, and is designed to respect positive norms and values even as it asks communities to examine and challenge those norms and values that are negative. GREAT includes: 1) simple steps to bring communities together to take action to improve adolescent well-being; 2) a serial radio drama with stories and songs about young people and their families living in Northern Uganda; 3) orientation to help Village Health Teams (VHTs) offer youth-friendly services; and 4) a toolkit with lively stories and games. Each of the components encompasses specific methods and tools.

This How-to-Guide provides the tools and instructions needed to implement the GREAT project in a community. It is broken down into sections for each GREAT project component; within each component chapter, one will find an overview of the component, suggested activity sessions, and tracking forms for tracking implementation progress. Activity sessions may be repeated in multiple chapters of the guide for ease of use. This guide also includes the handouts referenced throughout the guide. Some of the materials in the are sourced from other projects that were studied while conceptualizing GREAT.

Source: Georgetown University

Date of Publication: March 25, 2019

GREAT Scalable Toolkit

The Gender Roles, Equality and Transformations (GREAT) Project works to improve gender equity and reproductive health in Northern Uganda. GREAT uses radio drama, community mobilization, and small group discussions to promote dialogue and reflection among adolescents, with the goal of facilitating the formation of gender equitable norms and the adoption of attitudes and behaviors which may positively influence health outcomes among boys and girls, aged ten to 29.

This toolkit was developed as the centerpiece of the project and includes the following materials for use with small groups: activity cards, fact cards, flipbooks, game instructions and question cards, and discussion guides to accompany a year-long radio serial drama. (Scripts, recordings and development process description are available upon request.) The materials and activities are tailored to the lifecourse and designed to be scalable. The materials were also produced in local languages (Luo and Acholi).

Source: The Institute for Reproductive Health at Georgetown University, Pathfinder International, and Save the Children, with USAID funding (Mango Tree was local production house)

Date of Publication: March 25, 2019

Green Star National Message Guidelines

This guide is meant for use by everyone involved in the Green Star Family Planning Campaign in Tanzania in order to ensure that all messages are consistent throughout the campaign.

Source: Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs

Date of Publication: March 25, 2019

Guidelines for Conducting IYCF Counseling Sessions in Health Facilities

Alive & Thrive is an initiative in Vietnam aimed at improving infant and young child feeding by increasing rates of exclusive breastfeeding and improving complementary feeding practices. The guidelines in this document were developed to help counselors conduct individual counseling sessions, facilitate group discussions, and provide mothers instructions on infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices easily and effectively. The guidelines give specific instructions on what to do, how to do it, and which tools to use so that counselors can facilitate a counseling session in a spontaneous and easy manner. Included are: 8 topics for IYCF group sessions 1 guideline for individual IYCF counseling 1 guideline for supporting a new mother to breastfeed during the first days after giving birth at health facilities with delivery services

Source: Alive & Thrive

Date of Publication: March 25, 2019

Guidelines for Facilitating a Community-Based Support Group Meeting on Infant and Young Child Feeding

Alive & Thrive is an initiative in Vietnam aimed at improving infant and young child feeding by increasing rates of exclusive breastfeeding and improving complementary feeding practices.

The guidelines in this document aim to support community-based workers (CBWs) in organizing and facilitating infant and young child feeding support group (IYCFSG) meetings in the community in an efficient, effective manner. Through these meetings, mothers and caregivers can experience an environment open to discussion and learning about infant and young child feeding (IYCF) information and practices. The guidelines provide specific steps – what to do, how to do it, and which tools to use.

Source: Alive & Thrive

Date of Publication: March 25, 2019

Handbook on Participatory Methods for Community-based Projects

This handbook is intended to help integrate more participatory methods into programming for vulnerable populations, especially war-affected young adults and children.

In Liberia, Sierra Leone and Northern Uganda, among other countries in sub-Saharan Africa and throughout the world, communities are poorly equipped to respond in positive ways to returning girl mothers and to other war-affected young mothers in the community who are vulnerable because they may be unmarried, poor, and/or lack family support.

The overall goal is to improve the reintegration and well-being of young mothers by involving them as key actors in changing their situations and building broad community support for this process.

Source: University of Wyoming

Date of Publication: March 25, 2019