Abt Trains Jordanian Leadership on Family Planning Communications
On August 15, 2018, the Abt-led USAID Jordan Communication, Advocacy, and Policy (JCAP) Activity successfully concluded its10-day comprehensive training workshop in social and behavior change communications (SBCC) conducted by the American University of Beirut. The workshop addressed one of Jordan’s urgent priorities: enabling Ministry of Health (MOH) staff and employees of civil society organizations (CSOs) to design, implement and evaluate effective SBCC programs focusing on reproductive health and family planning (RH/FP). Eighteen staff members from the MOH’s Health Communication and Awareness Directorate (HCAD) and Women and Child Health Directorate (WCHD) and civil society organizations (CSOs)—attended the workshop.
At the kick off ceremony, Jordan’s Secretary General Assistant for Healthcare Affairs underscored the value of the workshop, which establishes a solid foundation for the MOH five-year SBCC strategic plan for family planning. The plan will be implemented by MOH/HCAD and WCHD through USAID funding.
To design the workshop, Abt assessed the MOH’s SBCC capacity, identifying gaps in SBCC tools and modules, and technical skills, as well as each directorate’s organizational structure and related job descriptions and competencies. Following the assessment, we designed a customized SBCC systemic capacity-building program with a focus on RH/FP. The program included two training sessions: an SBCC capacity-building workshop with both theoretical and practical training and a workshop on grant and contract management for SBCC services.
The analysis of the workshop indicates that 73 percent of participants showed improvement in acquired technical SBCC competencies, such as designing SBCC programs using evidence and research and developing creative communication materials.
As part of the workshop, MOH and CSOs’ participants collaborated to develop an initial draft of the MOH five-year SBCC family planning strategic plan, which may include partnerships to implement community-based interventions.
“Bringing together CSOs and Ministry of Health opens new perspectives for possible joint efforts to maximize cost-effectiveness and impact of social and behavior change efforts for family planning” said Oraib Al Khateeb, Project Development and Fundraising Manager at Sisterhood is Global Institute, one of the partnering CSOs. Following the workshop, JCAP started working with both MOH Directorates to finalize the strategic plan that was developed in the workshop. Once completed, Abt will hand over all of its family-planning SBCC tools and modules to the MOH and CSOs.
