The Social and Behavior Change (SBC) Flow Chart Toolkit

"Borrowing heavily from human-centered design principles, the SBC Flow Chart requires users to adopt a beginner's mind to identify new insights to solve sticky public health problems."

The Social and Behavior Change (SBC) Flow Chart toolkit provides an introduction to implementing the SBC Flow Chart, a process developed by Breakthrough ACTION to design effective SBC activities to address health or development challenges. Structured as online lessons, the toolkit offers guidance on how to conduct each step in the three-phase process that makes up the Flow Chart and offers tools that may be helpful along the way.

As explained by Breakthrough ACTION, "The Flow Chart process actively and meaningfully engages end-users and stakeholders from start to finish, ensuring true co-creation. It harnesses the Breakthrough ACTION consortium partner disciplines (i.e., design, behavioral science, community engagement, market research, and communication) into a new hybrid process that has its roots in the P Process [a tool for planning strategic, evidence-based health communication programmes], the human-centered design and behavioral economics design processes, and the Community Action Cycle [a community mobilisation approach that fosters individual and collective action to address key health programme outcomes]. The three phases - Define, Design & Test, and Apply - offer project managers a process to more deeply explore and understand context, formulate insights that uncover new truths, build new designs with community members, and test and iterate on locally made designs. Real-time monitoring is the key to ensuring designs are implemented at scale with intended results."

The three phases are described as follows:

1. Define and understand the problem: This phase assesses the findings and insights that already exist and establishes mechanisms to deepen understanding of the problem’s complexity. This is accomplished by establishing empathy with communities and uncovering new perspectives and insights to guide solutions.
2. Design and test potential solution concepts: Grounded in deeper understanding, this phase informs how practitioners will address SBC by involving community members in the solution ideation process. Ideas and concepts are iteratively developed and tested within the context in which they will be applied to reach optimal outcomes.
3. Apply successful prototypes as activities or interventions: Once programmes synthesise testing feedback into a prioritised suite of solutions, this phase marks the progressive implementation of these solutions. Real-time monitoring and evaluation is used to assess success and make necessary tweaks and adjustments as solutions are scaled over time.

The toolkit also outlines the cross-cutting mindsets integrated into every step of the SBC Flow Chart which include: equitable co-design, contextual data gathering, meeting users where they are, empathetic listening, dynamic scaling, and nudge for positive choice.    

The user is taken on a five-point journey that consists of the three phases outlined above and two points of convergence where users validate was has been found or developed. For each step, the toolkit offers tools such as templates and checklists to guide the user. The interactive lessons are structured accordingly:

The SBC Flow Chart Way (defines the cross-cutting mindsets mentioned above):

Phase 1: Define

• Mine Existing Knowledge
• Make an Intent Statement
• Deepen Understanding

Point of Convergence

• First Point of Convergence

Phase 2: Design & Test

• Imagine
• Refine
• Prototype
• Test

Point of Convergence

• Second Point of Convergence

Phase 3: Apply

• Implement & Monitor
• Evaluate & Refine
• Adapt & Scale

Resources

• Tools (such as research tools and templates)

The toolkit is complemented by several other resources, which can all be accessed at the toolkit link below:

• Country Spotlights, which showcase how Breakthrough ACTION has used the SBC Flow Chart to address health problems that range from malaria and Zika to family planning and tuberculosis in various countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Jamaica, Nigeria, and Guinea.
• SBC Flow Chart Introduction [October 2020), which outlines the disciplines, explains their underpinning methodologies and explores the tools and techniques that comprise the Flow Chart phases.
• Insights 101 Playbook, which focuses on how to identify insights to apply them (also see Related Summaries, below).
• Social and Behavior Change 101: An Introduction, which is a short course for programme managers, donor organisations, and family planning/reproductive health practitioners in learning how SBC interventions can guide and amplify the effectiveness of FP and RH programmes. (Click here for a summary.)

Click here to access the interactive toolkit in French.