Influencing the influencers: Community tools for engaging fathers, grandmothers and leaders in nutrition

Faith Thuita Ms, PATH

FSN Network Knowledge Sharing Meeting, June 11-13, 2012,

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Tools to engage fathers, grandmothers, and community leaders for improved maternal and child nutrition• In this session we will:

– Review some evidence about influencers

– Examine a package of tools the IYCN Project developed to “influence the influencers” for who can support improved nutrition and caring behaviors

– Learn about a study in Kenya that is evaluating the impact of engaging men and grandmothers on maternal and young children’s diets using the tools.

– Do an exercise based on one of the tools, and some small group work to think about influencing the influencers through our current projects

Evidence for who influences a mother’s decision about IYCF and her own diet

Photo: Mike Wang/PATH

Roles and Influence of grandmothers and men – Family

approach• Mother-child dyad nestled within

family.

• Need to address community norms, not just individual behaviour.

• GM - Care givers, senior advisors and consultants on pregnancy, child birth and care for infants and young children).

Roles of men/Fathers

• Provision of financial resources – basic family needs

• Financial and logistic resources for routine and emergency health care

Formative research data: Barrier Analyses

Behavior / Approves/Disapproves

Country

Odds Ratio (Degree of Association)

Husband

Grand-mother / Grand- father

CousinMother-in-

LawFamily

MemberMedic. Staff

Neighbors/ Friends

Other

Excl. BF, Approves 6.5 3.8 5.9 10.4

EBF, Approves DRC 2.3 (blank = no s.s. findings)

EBF, Disapproves 7.1

EBF, Disapproves DRC 6.8

EBF, Disapproves Sierra L. 4.0

EBF, Disapproves

Immediate BF, Approves 4.2 4.0 4.0

Immediate BF, Disapproves 12.5 11.0

Encouraging non-hungry child to eat, Approves

5.7

Feeding Freq., Approves DRC

Comp. Feeding, Disapproves Sierra L. 2.0

Comp. Feeding, Approves Sierra L. 4.5

Same/More food during Diarrhea, Approves

DRC 3.3 2.7

ITN usage, Approves 3.8 3.7 3.7 1.5

ITN usage, Approves 2.8 4.3

ITN usage, Disapproves 2.3 1.8 2

HWWS, Disapproves Sierra L. 5.9

Health Seeking, Approves Sierra L.

Antenatal Care, Approves 4.5

PATHs SURE start Programme - IndiaUsed multiple channels and methods of

communication to engage;

• Mothers

• Household members

• Health care workers

• Community leaders to improve maternal and neo-natal outcomes in over 5,500 rural villages and 700 urban slums.

Effect of mothers’ groups: participants practice

healthier behaviors in antenatal period

Page 8

MSG participants provided better newborn care

Page 9

IYCN Project’s Community Nutrition Package: training and participant materials

Package of Materials

Peer educators

Men’s groups

Grandmother groups

Mother support groups

Community leaders

Strengthening health talks

Integrating nutrition into

community theater activities.

Monitoring and evaluation forms

Counseling supervision checklist and guidelines.

Exit interview questionnaire and guidelines.

Referral tracking form and register.

Examples of experience with tools

Training psycho-social support counselors (PSSC) on HIV and infant feeding.

Training manual and participant guide on infant feeding and HIV used.

Reporting tools for ongoing monitoring activities.

Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/PATH

Engaging grandmothers and men to Improve maternal diets and child feeding practices

Public health evaluation

Formative assessment

Baseline study

Community based intervention

Endline survey

Training , Facilitation and Monitoring tools for use with dialogue groups

• Training grandmothers dialogue group mentors

• Trained mentors use dialogue group mentors guide to facilitate monthly dialogue sessions.

• Monitoring tools – Monitor group meetings

Grandmothers – Training and group discussion

IYCF and Gender: a training manual for male group leaders

Training and participants guides for training male group leaders.

• Guides modified to train fathers dialogue group mentors

Men – Mentors training and Dialogue group

Community theater for improved nutrition: a guide for program managers and theater groups

Photo: Kali EricksonPhoto: Julie Baker/PATH

Using this collection of tools

Available on www.iycn.org

Thank you for your attention!

• Do you have any questions before we begin some discussions in small groups?