Group Work  What IEC materials do you use in the community? (type – title)  What is the target audience?  Where is it found?  Which behavior is it addressing?  How big is the problem?  How did you learn about the problem?  What are some of the messages?  What behavior are you promoting?  How much do you wish to achieve by end of 2003?  How do you know you got there?

Strategic Communication AFRWG Face to face meeting May, Presented by Teopista Nakyanzi MU-JHU Community Educator/ Liaison ;

What is strategic communication  Strategic communication is the development of programmes designed to influence the voluntary behaviour of target audiences to achieve management objectives

Concept of strategic communication Client centered Begin where audience is. Know the audience. How people feel and see things. Put message in context. Client needs serve as foundation of a comm. Strategy

Goal  Influence the voluntary behaviour of target audiences (Take home Value)  Improve the chances of success of development projects

Why communication in Public Health  To increase Knowledge of health issues, problem or solution  Remind about or reinforce knowledge  Disprove myths and misconceptions

Why communication cont.  Show benefits of behaviour change  Prompt action, seeking behaviour, participation  Advocate for health issues or patient population

Why communication cont.  To ensure good public relations  Help mobilise organisational relationship  Influence perceptions, beliefs, attitudes and social norms

Developing a communication strategy cont.  Management decisions  Situation analysis  Communication analysis  Communication planning

Developing a communication strategy cont.  Evaluation planning  Implementation & management  Feedback  Evaluation

Management decisions  A communication Reseach Plan  A budget  a Time line  A capacity building component

Situation anaylsis Epidemiologic research Problem definition, description & analysis;  What is the real problem?  How many people are affected?  Who is being affected?

Situation analysis cont.  Are there subgroups within the target audience that are different enough and large enough to justfy different communications strategy ?  Who is responsible for the problem?  What are the benefits and barriers people have?

Communication anaylsis  What are they doing? ( current behavior)  What do we want them to do? ( desired behavior)  What is the impact of communication on the cause of problem Developing the template

Communication analysis cont.  What is the impact of communication on the problem  Take away message Developing the template

Settings and channels  How are you going to reach the target audience ( media, Organizational, community, Interpersonal)  What channels & innovations; (stories, panels, film show),  What media will deliver the message? Radio spot, T.V, newspaper, )

Settings and channels cont. Point of service;  Market  Schools  Community education Use Multiple channels

Settings and channels cont.  Community meetings  leaflets, info. Packets  electronic media

The message Should be;  Simple and comprehensive  Alerting  Involving appeals to both mind and heart

The message cont.  Compassionate, Memorable  Persuasive  Culturally acceptable

Factors that motivate behavior  Benefits  Costs  Self efficacy

Delivery, reach and effectiveness phase  Look at process  Is message reaching intended audience?  How many will be reached?  How quickly and cheaply will they be reached?  Are we actually making an impact?

Reach out phase cont. Short term; effect Pre and post test survey Mid-term; behavior change survey Long-term; changes in health status- decrease in incidence

Test Message Phase  How do they react? Assess attention  Do they understand the story board or it was confusing? measure comprehension  Do they believe it was made for them?

Test message cont.  Identify strong and weak points  Gauge sensitivity and controversial elements  The research is small scale, low cost, rapid

Test message cont.  Answers “why” not “how many”  Samples not random  Data often words, not numbers  Opportunity to directly experience target audience

Commonly used qualitative methods  Key informants  Central intercept interviews( Go to a place where audience is)  Focus group discussions

Challenges to building teams to communicate strategically  Authority centered culture - open communication is impeded  Divergent organizational paradigms and culture  Political, economic and social instability

Challenges cont.  Organizational output oriented  Challenges to sustain the dialogue  Empowerment of the members

Developing strategic communication  Time line- development can not happen in a matter of weeks- Fairly long process  Develop your TOR  Relevant expertise

Acknowledgement  Ned Roberto; World Bank- Panos Institute, London  Linda Kavuma; Uganda Country team Strategic planning AIDS Project  Enginyu Sam; commmunications specialist AIDS Control Programme