Project News

Social and Behavioral Change Communication (SBCC) is the approach to promote desirable health behaviors with the targeted messages to the target population utilizing communication approaches which include media as well as individual and group communication. Workshop for the development of Social and Behavioral Change Communication (SBCC) strategies was conducted in Kumasi, Ghana, to promote family members and the community to support women and children to use MCH Record Book and continue to receive quality MCH care and services. The technical workshop was conducted for 2 days, April 28 and 29 2021 in Kumasi. District Health Team of 11 focus districts (44), Regional Health Team of Ashanti Region, National facilitators from GHS HQ, and JICA experts and National staffs participated in the workshop. The objective of the workshop was:

• to provide key baseline and M&S results as the basis for SBCC strategy development
• to build the capacity of health care workers to develop and implement SBCC strategies targeting maternal and infant/young child feeding and care practices increase the use of optimal behaviors
• to discuss effective approaches for community mobilization and engagement, and
• to develop districts specific plan of actions for the implementation of SBCC activities

The opening remark started with Dr. Emmanuel Tinkorang, Regional Director of Health, Ashanti Region. Regional Director expressed his gratitude to JICA's continuous support in the region in the area of MCH and Nutrition and encouraged his team and district teams to do their best to make significant outcomes to meet the input that JICA provides in the procurement of equipment and capacity building of 1000 health workers in 11 districts. Dr. Tinkorang also stressed the importance of leadership and teamwork in each district to build a stronger health system and resilient community. Moreover, he commented on the importance of health worker's capacity to sustain the MCH RB program successfully and encouraged his team to ensure the orientation and guidance on the effective utilization of MCH RB to the new staff. Dr. Tinkorang finally encouraged the district teams to build the model of good practices of MCH RB by focusing on community engagement and SBCC activities.

On behalf of Director of Family Health Division, GHS, Deputy Director of Family Health (Nutrition), Ms. Esi Amoaful remarked and expressed the importance of the quality of care of MNCH and Nutrition beyond saving lives of mothers and children and encouraged the Regional and District Teams to work on filling the equity gap.

Dr. Akiko Hagiwara, Chief Advisor, MCH RB Project congratulated first on the successful management and control of COVID-19 in Ghana with the initiatives and leadership of GHS and appreciated the GHS's effort to sustain the provision of quality MCH and Nutrition services under the difficult situation. Dr. Akiko also expressed her gratitude to Ashanti Region and selected 11 districts to sustain the MCH RB Program under COVID-19. She stressed the importance of SBCC for the promotion of COC as COC needs to be expanded to the community and hoped this workshop to be fruitful.

Dr. Kofi Issah, Director of Family Health Division, who joined the workshop on Day2, expressed his high expectation and commented to the 11 DHMTs that the leadership of the District Director of Health is critical to make significant achievement. He encouraged 11 district teams to cope with current difficulties and show impact to be a model to other districts and share their experiences with others for sustainability

As the output of the workshop, the 11 district health teams developed a draft district SBCC plan through the group work and they are expected to finalize their plan in their districts with the engagement of the community.

The workshop started with the report of the major findings of the baseline and situation analysis to review the issues and challenges related to MCH and Nutrition in the region. Lectures on the basic concept of the Social and Behavioral Change Communication, Nutrition Counseling Service and 3A Approach (assessment, analysis and actions), Nutrition Counseling and Community Engagement, supported district teams to have a better understanding of the concept. Group work was conducted to identify current MCH and Nutrition issues in the district, target population, target actions, target messages, and appropriate communication channels to deliver target messages to the target audience. Root cause analysis was done to identify the possible underlying cause of the problem and the team prioritized the challenges and justified why the select problem is critical in their districts. All 11 districts presented the draft SBCC plan and shared comments to make the plan more feasible and practical. At the end of the workshop, Ms. Tomoko

Saito (JICA Expert on Community Health) went through the modality, budget, schedule and reporting forms of the SBCC activities to the district teams.

Regional and District health teams commented that they had clear ideas on how to promote MCH RB and Nutrition Counseling Service and Respectful Care utilizing the SBCC approach in their districts. 11 district teams will finalize the plan in their districts with the discussion with the community health committee, submit it to the Region and JICA MCH RB project and then receive the necessary support to implement some of their SBCC activities. Although the implementation period of the SBCC activities under the Project's support is limited, we hope that the 11 district teams could continue to conduct effective SBCC activities even after the completion of the MCH RB Project and promote COC in their districts and use MCH RB effectively.

Group Photo of the Participants at the SBCC strategy Workshop

Group work to develop SBCC strategies and plan

Presentation of the SBCC strategies and plan

Group work to develop SBCC strategies and plan