Methods
Our approaches and methods develop all the time!
We want to respond to partners needs and start from where they are. We use our experience to develop tailor-made solutions. See below for some of the methods which we adapting all the time for different situations.
Recently we are looking at ways to turn away from the page and use drama, dance, song and movement to engage and train interested practitioners. Even if a training manual is really good, if people don’t read the book, it’s useless!
An off-the-shelf method we have used is called The Tricycle Method – it has three parts (three wheels) and within each part three sections. Click here for more about The Tricycle Method. Many people have found it useful to understand the challengers and as a framework for thinking and planning to develop a programme that promotes Children’s Participation in Health.
See also, Three Times Three and Methods to Learn the 100 Health Messages.
Children for Health’s methods are about working with children; working out a strategy to grow what works and addressing the barriers to the behaviour changes that we want and need. In our experience it is only when we do this that we can start to get close to transforming behaviour. The children can be a powerful part of that transformative process.
Just imagine if you do this right! Each classroom represents an army of health activists in their family and community! But it doesn’t work simply by telling them to do X or Y. You have to do it in the right way. A useful diagnostic tool we apply to looking at complex health education issues (like hand washing) is to look at four aspects of the intervention:
- Does the target group have the KNOWLEDGE?
- Does the target groups have the SKILLS to act on the knowledge?
- Does that target group have the MOTIVATION to apply the knowledge and skills?
- Does the ENVIRONMENT in which the target group lives, enable or hinder the application of the knowledge and skills even when motivated to do so.
When something like the message about hand washing is not working then the reasons can usually be traced back to one of these four aspects or a combination of them.