Social and Behavior Change for Family Planning User Journey Tool

"The evidence base is large and growing: Social and behavior change can overcome barriers to family planning uptake and is cost-effective". - Joanna Skinner, Breakthrough ACTION

This Social and Behavior Change (SBC) for Family Planning User Journey Tool has been designed by Breakthrough ACTION to be used as an advocacy tool to encourage decision-makers to invest in SBC within family planning (FP) programming. It is intended to be used by SBC advocates to communicate the need for SBC in an easy-to-grasp visual format.

As Breakthrough ACTION explains, "A multitude of factors influences family planning (FP) uptake and maintenance. Social and behavior change (SBC) is uniquely placed to understand and address those factors. However, FP programs often underutilize and underfund SBC. Helping decision makers understand the social and behavioral drivers of FP use and how SBC can effectively address those drivers can lead to greater use and investment in SBC."

The tool has three sections:

1. Introduction: This section introduces the tool and presents evidence-based data on the impact of SBC intervention in FP.

2. Nala's FP journey: This interactive module follows the FP journey of Nala - a fictional young woman who represents the experiences of young women like her around the world - highlighting key social and behavioural determinants that influence her decision to learn about, use, and continue using FP. Decision-makers using the tool can choose whether they want to explore a married or unmarried journey. Then, they choose which stage in Nala's FP journey to explore: when she gets introduced to FP, starts using FP, or continues using FP. Finally, they review the emotions, barriers, needs, and people influencing that stage of the journey, as well as proven SBC interventions that address those factors.

3. Call to action module: This module presents three actions decision-makers can take to support SBC in FP and offers practical tools to help them get started. They include:

• Commit: involves taking a pledge to commit to putting SBC on the FP agenda.
• Learn: provides resources to start the process of supporting SBC for FP in a country or community.
• Share: offers social media links to help spread the word about the effectiveness of SBC for FP to other decision-makers.  

User Journey Advocacy Tool Quick Tips Guide [PDF]: This accompanying tool is designed to help SBC advocates to navigate the User Journey Tool and prepare to use it with decision-makers in their contexts. It has three parts:

• Presentation: An overview of the tool's structure and purpose
• Preparation: Checklists to help prepare for meetings with decision makers
• Facilitation tips: How to contextualise the tool and guide the conversation

ThinkPlace for led the development of this tool using a co-design process. The Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs provided technical expertise, and Ceros developed the interactive content.