Reviewing Your Current SBCC Activities For How They Address Social Norms
To review you current SBCC activities, you will need:
1. To have identified a priority social norm(s) ;
2. A SNAP analysis of a key social norm(s)
If not, go back to the sections on:
Strategies for social norms SBCC
We tend to talk about activities that “shift” or “address” social norms, but that’s not specific enough. What does that really mean in practice?
Broadly, there are three strategies you can choose from if you want to address social norms through SBCC:
- Weakening a social norm: Breaking down the existing norm, at the individual and community level.
- Changing, countering or complementing a social norm: Promoting a constructive alternative to the existing behaviour, with clear benefits.
- Leveraging a social norm: Calling attention to positive values and norms.
You should use your own judgment, contextual insights, and existing analyses to determine which one is the most appropriate strategy for the norm you are prioritising.
Tip! The SNAP framework and power calculator can help identify key characteristic of your social norm that point to one of the three strategies.
For example, if your norm…
(Remember, not all of the bullet points have to be true for the strategy to work, and vice versa!)
| You have… | You want to… | Start here! |
|---|---|---|
| No experience with social norms programming | Understand what it’s all about | Social norms 101 |
| Make sense of the terminology | Social norms jargon buster | |
| Some experience with social norms programming | Brush up on the theory | Social norms 101 |
| Talk about MSI’s social norms work externally | Social norms at MSI | |
| Develop a new social norms activity | How to identify and understand the social norms impacting SRH access |
What are we currently doing to address the social norms barriers we have identified?
First, make a list of the activities you think are addressing the social norm you have prioritised.
Then, translate the activities into logic chains. Just like we did with the SNAP framework before, it is helpful to describe activities in a specific way, to make sure it all makes sense! This will also help come up with ways to monitor the activity’s impact.
A logic chain is a sentence/paragraph that:
- Describes the activity
- How the activity addresses the social norm (which of the 3 strategies)
- How reference groups will be reached
- What will change as a result among which group
Say we are working on the social norm “I believe unmarried adolescent girls should not use family planning.” The activity we think addresses this are school health clubs, where teachers are trained to organise activities with girls to talk about all aspects of sexual health.
The logic chain would then be:
The School Health clubs will remove the norm that unmarried adolescent girls should not use family planning, by sharing information about sexual health so to that girls feel more empowered to use family planning.
What could we be doing?
Following your analysis, there are 2 options to continue strengthening your social norms work:
- Refining existing activities: Can you strengthen your activities by including one of the checklist suggestions? Or partner with another stakeholder who can fill this gap? Don’t forget to check out the Social Norms Library and Top Tips section for inspiration!
- Adding/designing new activities: If you have found too many important gaps, you may want to start fresh and design a new activity. You can use this dedicated section to do so. Use what you found in the checklist tool: focus on the existing opportunities you will have identified. For example, if you already organise group sessions in Outreach, can you add a norms element to that messaging?
What are we currently doing to address the social norms barriers we have identified?
First, make a list of the activities you think are addressing the social norm you have prioritised.
Then, translate the activities into logic chains. Just like we did with the SNAP framework before, it is helpful to describe activities in a specific way, to make sure it all makes sense! This will also help come up with ways to monitor the activity’s impact.
A logic chain is a sentence/paragraph that:
- Describes the activity
- How the activity addresses the social norm (which of the 3 strategies)
- How reference groups will be reached
- What will change as a result among which group
Say we are working on the social norm “I believe unmarried adolescent girls should not use family planning.” The activity we think addresses this are school health clubs, where teachers are trained to organise activities with girls to talk about all aspects of sexual health.
The logic chain would then be:
The School Health clubs will remove the norm that unmarried adolescent girls should not use family planning, by sharing information about sexual health so to that girls feel more empowered to use family planning.
For some more inspiration, these are some examples we came up with during a workshop with 4 country programmes in Senegal:
- The discussions with community leaders will change, counter and complement the norm that unmarried adolescents should not concern themselves with contraception, by sensitising leaders to the risks and consequences of unintended pregnancies, making leaders more aware of the exceptions to the social norm.
- Organising discussions between unmarried women and peers who are satisfied MSI clients will weaken the norm that unmarried women should not and do not use family planning, reassuring the non-client peers so that they might take up a service or become champions themselves.
You can now try this yourself using the logic chain tool.
How impactful are the activities?
Using the logic chain, we can analyse if the activity is strong enough to change the social norm. First, ask yourself a few questions:
- Does the logic chain make sense? In the example, is sharing information enough to empower girls, or do we need to do more?
- Is the strategy chosen in the activity the right one? Looking at the power calculator, is the norm perhaps too powerful to remove, and should you look at leveraging a linked positive norm instead?
Finally, there are 8 High-Impact Approaches that are proven to be most likely to successfully shift social norms. You can use sheet 2 in the checklist tool to check which activity/activities include these elements already, and start thinking about opportunities.
FAQ: I have an amazing idea, but no budget!
I have an amazing idea, but no budget! Consider adding a “wishlist” to your activity plan. This is where you can keep track of these kinds of amazing ideas, so you have them ready to go whenever a new proposal comes up