Ujjiban makes a difference within MoHFW to sustain SBCC Interventions
The Bangladesh Center for Communication Programs (BCCP) was entrusted with the Capacity and System Strengthening (CSS) component of the USAID Ujjiban Social and Behavior Change Communication (SBCC) project for the period of October 2017 – September 2022. BCCP closely coordinated with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) and its relevant Units throughout the project duration, and in the final year, the project focused on building the SBCC capacity and improving the Unit’s systems and providing input on the SBCC strategy, SBCC tools, training, and supportive supervisions needed to ensure sustainable impact of SBCC programs on health, population, and nutrition areas.
The capacity-strengthening work of Ujjiban project by BCCP was built around the process of institutionalizing and scaling up the use of standard SBCC tools in the government health system. Over the past four years of the project, Ujjiban laid a strong foundation within the relevant MoHFW Units and the Public Health (PH) wing for the execution of high-quality SBCC programs, focused on building relationships, providing technical assistance, and strengthening the capacity to independently manage the SBCC tools and techniques introduced to roll out SBCC activities; and in the last two quarters of the final year, BCCP and the project focused more on scale-up and strengthening monitoring systems to ensure sustainability.
SCALE UP THE USE OF SBCC TOOLS:
Ujjiban transferred the skills and institutionalized systems to sustain the use of SBCC digital tools introduced within MoHFW system. As part of that, BCCP conducted hands-on skills transfer training on the use of online SBCC material submission application (OSMA) for the officials of relevant Units and MoHFW; and equipped them with a user guidebook as a ready reference.
BCCP provided support to conduct a series of ToTs on digital resource use to scale-up the activities in new districts by the Units i.e., Information, Education, and Motivation (IEM) Unit of DGFP, and Bureau of Health Education (BHE) of DGHS and rolling out basic training on the use of eToolkit by the frontline service providers. The team followed up with the digital resource users and provided support as needed; conducted refresher trainings for the field-level troubleshooter teams to reinforce the availability of troubleshooting support and provided them with a frequently asked questions (FAQs) guidebook.
The team also provided refresher training on the use of the SBCC Activities Monitoring Checklist for Supervisors (SAMCS application) for 275 frontline supervisors (Assistant Health Inspector, Family Planning Inspector) of the 12 pretesting Upazilas. The team also provided support in conducting the scale-up evaluation of 3 capacity and system strengthening efforts - eToolkit, SAMCS application for the frontline supervisor, and SBCC Coordination.
ROLL OUT OF INTEGRATED “School Health Population Nutrition Education Package”: The School HPN Education Package (SHPNEP) was launched in January 2022 by MoHFW, making it available to stakeholders for health education in schools. The event was attended by senior officials from the MoHFW directorates and representatives from development organizations and NGOs. The package covered issues relating to adolescent health and nutrition, sexual and reproductive health, child marriage and gender, substance abuse, accidents and trauma, early childhood development, and common diseases. BCCP provided significant technical assistance in developing this comprehensive and unified curriculum for health education at schools. A circular was issued from MoHFW to implement the SHPNEP within all relevant operation plans.
Ujjiban built a trainer’s pool of 200 GO-NGO stakeholders by conducting a series of Training of Trainers (ToT) to roll out training on the use of SHPNEP and provided hands-on support to facilitate basic training by them for the frontline service providers of DGFP and DGHS at 24 districts. It is envisioned that this training generously contributed to enhancing the knowledge and skills of trainee participants in SHPNEP sessions and equipped them to facilitate better school-level orientation on the SHPNE package.
SUPPORT TO SBCC PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION: As an implementing partner of the Ujjiban project, BCCP provided technical assistance to MoHFW SBCC-focused sections – namely the IEM Unit, the National Nutrition Services (NNS) Unit, and BHE – for transferring skills to implement high-quality SBCC programs. The program activities included - Message Development Workshop of DGFP to develop messages on FP, maternal and adolescent health for promotion through different media; rolling out Pre-Marital Counseling training for the Marriage Registrars, Imams, Priests, and field-level service providers in 18 districts; designed the nationwide Family Welfare Service and Campaign Week, National Nutrition Week activities, interactive live program on nutrition in mass media, and programs for observing special days specifically World Population Day, World Health Day, World Breastfeeding Week. Ujjiban also strengthened the capacity of the Units on the use of a virtual platform in the SBCC program and training interventions.
LEADERSHIP AND FUNCTIONAL COORDINATION: One of the key focuses of Ujjiban was to strengthen the leadership skills of the program managers. Keeping this in mind, BCCP provided training to the Units and district-level FP and Health managers of Chattogram and Sylhet divisions on the Leadership and Coordination cascaded training module. Related DGHS and DGFP Units and divisional-level managers were also oriented on Community Mobilization and Engagement Curriculum for its use by the Units in their program. To institutionalize the functional coordination in SBCC program implementation, Ujjiban continued to provide technical assistance to the Units and Public Health wing of MoHFW to organize Health Population Nutrition SBCC Coordination Committees meetings – namely central and divisional BCC working group, National SBCC Implementation Committee on a regular interval to facilitate SBCC program coordination.
PROJECT CLOSE-OUT: Ujjiban conducted a planning workshop to outline the project close-out plan; accordingly developed a video on capacity and system strengthening (CSS) activities overview; prepared a brief on project lessons learned, compiled all the deliverables (tools and products) for handing over to the Units, and showcasing the Ujjiban project outcomes and sustainability plan through USAID Ujjiban’s Learning Festival that was held in August 2022 with 400 GO-NGO stakeholders.