Innovation Teams

The Innovation Teams (ITs) were teams of 3-5 people from one organization formed around the desire for continued growth and learning, while participating in the co-design and testing process.

The purpose of the Innovation Teams was to deepen coordination and engagement of SBC stakeholders in understanding, discussing, designing, and testing innovative family planning, maternal and child health, and gender strategies in South Sudan.

Using human centered design (HCD), behavioral economics (BE), a community mobilization approach, and gender-centric tools designed to increase dialogue, Breakthrough ACTION worked with identified partners to strengthen ownership and sustainability.

The Innovation Teams were formed around the following approaches and activities:

• Applying behavioral economics to increase male engagement in family planning.

• Using human centered design to improve maternal, newborn and child health behaviors.

• Adapting a transformational gender tool to increase dialogue around social and gender norms and select health areas.

• Leading a community mobilization process for collective action and building a system of trust between providers and community members.

Koneta Hub

Breakthrough Action worked with Koneta Hub to implement two design and test phases to develop SBC interventions to increase knowledge and awareness of priority FP/RH/MNCH/WASH behaviors and to explore the use of male-focused approaches to transform inequitable gender norms.

The team revised and prioritized the insights/findings from a desk review on the barriers related to knowledge and awareness of priority behaviors and services in South Sudan. Based on these findings, the team generated opportunity spaces for ideation and to identify behavior change interventions that have evidence of impact based on implementation in other countries.

The team went through multiple phases resulting in three final high fidelity prototypes ready for pilot:

• ACT! Scenarios

• Boma Health Guide: Male Support

• Lido Board Game

Reproductive Health Association of South Sudan

Breakthrough ACTION applied a Behavioral Economics approach to develop an interactive tool/game that encourages couple communication and joint decision-making about MNCH and FP/RH and encourages care-seeking.

The co-designed tool/game helps to facilitate peers, family and/or partners understanding and to make choices about delivery options, accessing ANC, child spacing and contraception, GBV, and experience the consequences of those choices for their families' health and finances.

The tool/game was adapted from an approach tested by ideas42 and IntraHealth International within the USAID Regional Health Integration to Enhance Services in Eastern Uganda project

The team went through multiple phases resulting in an interactive game "Together we Decide", which is ready for implementation.

AMALNA South Sudan

African Transformation is a gender transformative tool that uses dialogue to explore social and gender norms and their impact on health behaviors. This approach is designed to enable women and men to examine underlying gender barriers and facilitators to practice positive health behaviors and develop realistic solutions. African Transformation promotes gender equality, participatory development, and community action by bringing women and men together. Discussion may include both harmful and positive social norms and expectations as well as assumptions around gender roles and responsibilities. It is through these discussions that existing community norms are identified and challenged.

Through the Technical Advisory Group, the team worked to develop a series of profiles in audio and video formats of men, women, and couples who have overcome gender barriers and, by doing so, become role models. The profiles are accompanied a facilitator's guide.

The Sawa Le Baad: Tahwil Junub Sudan package is finalized and ready for implementation.

United Networks for Health, Community Aid for Relief and Development Organization, Touch Africa Development Organisation, South Sudan Women Empowerment Network

Community engagement is a capacity strengthening process through which community individuals, groups, or organizations plan, carry out, and evaluate activities on a participatory and sustained basis to improve their health, education, and other needs, either on their own initiative or stimulated by others.

For Community Engagement, the Breakthrough ACTION team worked with four organizations who were part of the Community Mobilization Team, a key component of the Community Action Cycle (CAC). The team worked to adapt the CAC to integrate Parttnership Defined Quality into the process, strengthening relationships and trust between community members and health care providers.

The final version of the adapted Community Action Cycle is ready for implementation