This issue includes:

• A few CHANGE THEORIES.
• Take part in a sustainable development SURVEY.
• How have you used The CI/The Drum Beat? CI STORIES.
• Selected PLANNING MODELS.
• SUBSCRIBE TO C-CHANGE PICKS for more on SBCC in the health sector.
• Items from the Evaluations: METHODOLOGIES section.
• E-HEALTH: Share your views!

---

This issue of The Drum Beat features a very small selection of what we have available in 3 oft-visited knowledge sections on The Communication Initiative website: Change Theories, Planning Models, and Evaluations: Methodologies. The representative collection below is meant to illustrate just a few of the different types of theories, models, and methodologies illuminated by the many summaries in those 3 sections.

If you, like fellow Drum Beat readers, value these sections on The CI site, we encourage you to help them flourish by sending your information any time to Deborah Heimann at dheimann@comminit.com

---

CHANGE THEORIES

1. Transtheoretical Model

An integrative model that describes how people modify a problem behaviour or acquire a positive behaviour. The central organising construct of the model is the 5 Stages of Change: Precontemplation, Contemplation, Preparation, Action, and Maintenance. Most often, these phases do not follow a simple linear progression; instead, they are seen as a set of dynamically interacting components through which the individual will likely cycle a number of times before achieving sustained behaviour change. Transition among stages results from experiential and behavioural processes that the individual may experience called the Processes of Change. Each of these stages is characterised by changes in decisional balance - that is, the balance between benefits and costs associated with engaging in a particular behaviour. The Transtheoretical Model recognises that different individuals will be in different stages and that interventions must be developed accordingly.

2. Connectionism

Principles:

• Learning requires both practice and rewards ("laws of effect/exercise").
• A series of stimuli (S)-response (R) connections can be chained together if they belong to the same action sequence ("law of readiness").
• Transfer of learning occurs because of previously encountered situations.
• Intelligence is a function of the number of connections learned.

3. Helping Theory with a Focus on Autonomy

How can an outside party ("helper") assist those who are undertaking autonomous activities (the "doers") without overriding or undercutting their autonomy?

• Help must start from the present situation of the doers.
• Helpers must see the situation through the eyes of the doers.
• Help cannot be imposed on the doers.
• Doers cannot receive help as a benevolent gift, as that creates dependency.
• Doers must be in the driver's seat.

4. Theory of Change for Comprehensive Clusters

This theory is based on the W. K. Kellogg Foundation's work in Latin American and Caribbean communities. Comprehensive clusters are built on a framework that proposes 2 key drivers for community change:

• Engaging youth as key actors by mobilising and involving them in the process of building a vision for the future and bringing energy to the implementation of local development strategies; and
• Fostering the formation of community alliances and inter-sectoral collaborations that involve individuals, civil society organisations, the business sector, and local governments to align efforts and create an environment to promote inclusion and participation of citizens in general, and youth in particular.

[top]

---

SURVEY

Sustainable development - is it news?

How newsworthy is sustainable development in your country? What topics are most neglected - food security, climate change, or the marine environment? GlobeScan is surveying journalists and other media professionals with a short online survey - it will take 15 minutes to share your opinion. The aim is to build understanding of media treatment of sustainable development issues. This study is being run by the Complus Alliance, a partnership of communicators for sustainable development, together with GlobeScan, an independent research company. In recognition of your time, a report of survey findings will be offered to all those who complete the survey. For more information, please contact Susan Hlady at GlobeScan, susan.hlady@globescan.com

[top]

---

HOW HAVE YOU USED THE CI/THE DRUM BEAT?

For research purposes?

"I have used the Drum Beat Chat discussion archives to inform 2 new books - one on AIDS Ideology, and one on AIDS and Behaviour. I used some quotes from the CI ABC debate (within the discussion forum), and I have shared the archive with students and colleagues. It’s great to have such an archive to draw information from and it throws light on crucial issues of e.g., What Works in AIDS prevention in Africa?"

For encouragement?

"...Reading of what others are doing on community levels, with seemingly small initiatives, is heartening for us. Not only are we stimulated with ideas on improving communication within our community, etc, but, we see that at the heart of all these programs, pilot projects, and ideas, are people in "community" beating out their drums that spell out hope and "we never give up" as long as we have the energy to beat the drum...."

View additional stories here.

Please tell us your story: Click here! (NOTE: you must be a registered, logged in user to submit a story).

[top]

---

PLANNING MODELS

5. Comprehensive Condom Programming Framework

This framework links barriers to demand for condoms with supply issues and targeted marketing strategies. Aspects of the framework include: securing leadership and coordination (at global, regional, national, and community levels); determining demand; ensuring supply; and providing support. It also stresses the need for: strong programme management, linkages, and integration with other services; monitoring and evaluation; and quality service delivery.

6. Action Theatre

This is an applied form of theatre, developed and demonstrated in Bangladesh, that includes a dramatisation of a social problem, followed by the participation of the community in identifying and carrying out solutions. The goal of Action Theatre is to develop the capacities of young people and cultural activists at the grassroots level to be a force for change, helping create a society based on human rights, gender equity, and social justice. The tactical outcome is the creation of local theatre groups that initiate discussion, debate, analysis, and actions on critical human rights issues in their community. Participants may also enhance their leadership skills and human rights awareness. 

7. PLACE Method for Monitoring and Evaluation of HIV Prevention Programmes

Designed for local programme managers, Priorities for Local AIDS Control Efforts (PLACE) is a "rapid assessment tool to monitor and improve AIDS prevention program coverage in areas where HIV transmission is most likely to occur." PLACE is designed to: systematically identify gaps in current prevention programmes, enhance the local use of these findings to improve programme delivery, and monitor programme coverage over time. The specific objectives of the PLACE method are:

• To identify geographic areas most likely to contain key HIV transmission networks;
• To assess HIV prevention programme coverage among groups most likely to acquire and transmit HIV; and
• To provide specific actionable recommendations to address critical gaps in prevention programming.

8. SCALE (System-wide Collaborative Action for Livelihoods and the Environment)

This is a 5-step management process that:

• Takes a system-driven approach and recognises the relationships and connections of the social systems around a development issue;
• Keeps the focus on the development goal;
• Identifies key leverage points to prioritise investments and interventions based on the demands of the commodity/value chain;
• Fosters early participation of a diverse group of stakeholders along the commodity/value chain (national and local government, farmers, industry leaders, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), input markets, media, and private sector representatives) by leading them through a "whole-system-in-the-room" (WSR) planning workshop;
• Supports stakeholder groups to find common interests, builds coalitions, and engages in self-sustaining collaborative actions;
• Pursues common objectives that are achievable and compatible with local abilities, resources, and cultural practices;
• Integrates the application of multiple social change methodologies for greater impact;
• Ensures that stakeholders' short- and long-term action plans drive the implementation schedule; and
• Empowers local capacity to design, implement, manage, and monitor new enterprises and activities that emerge from the process.

9. Transformational Process

"Transformational learning is defined as learning that induces more far-reaching change in the learner than other kinds of learning, especially learning experiences which shape the learner and produce a significant impact, or paradigm shift, which affects the learner's subsequent experiences." The Transformational process "includes building human, cultural, and social capital through strategies devolving around the elements of transformation viz., gender role transformation, transformation of groups with specific vulnerabilities, social and economic empowerment, environmental management, and local capacity building. With this approach development will be sustainable especially when all players (including the state, private enterprise, non-governmental organisations, and community based organisations) come together for a public-private participation."

[top]

---

SUBSCRIBE TO THE C-CHANGE PICKS E-MAGAZINE

The C-Change Picks website and e-magazine both feature selections of case studies, initiatives, resources, and thinking included on The CI website that have been specifically highlighted by the C-Change programme. Funded by USAID, C-Change works with global, regional, and local partners to apply social and behaviour change communication approaches in the health sector - HIV and AIDS, family planning and reproductive health, malaria, and primary health care - and is expanding to the environmental sector. The C-Change Picks e-magazine is published regularly and features resources recently highlighted by C-Change.

SUBSCRIBE by contacting cchange@comminit.com

For a comprehensive view of what has been highlighted thus far, visit the C-Change Picks website.

[top]

---

EVALUATION METHODOLOGIES

10. Outcome Mapping

The focus of Outcome Mapping is on people. The methodology shifts away from assessing the development impact of a programme (defined as changes in state - for example: poverty alleviation, or reduced conflict) and toward changes in the behaviours, relationships, actions, or activities of the people, groups, and organisations with whom a development programme works directly. Outcome Mapping establishes a vision of the human, social, and environmental betterment to which the programme hopes to contribute and then focuses monitoring and evaluation on factors and actors within that programme's direct sphere of influence. The programme's contributions to development are planned and assessed based on its influence on the partners with whom it is working to effect change. 

11. Gender Evaluation Methodology (GEM) for Internet and ICTs

GEM is a guide to integrating a gender analysis into evaluations of initiatives that use information and communication technologies (ICTs) for social change. GEM provides a means for determining whether ICTs are really improving women's lives and gender relations as well as promoting positive change at the individual, institutional, community, and broader social levels. The guide provides users with an overview of the 4 elements of the evaluation process and outlines suggested strategies and methodologies for incorporating a gender analysis throughout the evaluation process.

12. Participatory Organisational Evaluation Tool (POET)

POET produces 2 kinds of measures:

• A capacity score, which indicates how an organisation perceives its strengths and weaknesses with respect to the capacity areas; and
• A consensus score, which indicates the degree to which assessment team members agree on their assessment of organisational capacity.

13. Most Significant Change (MSC) Technique

A form of participatory monitoring and evaluation in which many project stakeholders are involved - both in deciding the sorts of change to be recorded and in analysing the data. MSC occurs throughout the programme cycle and provides information to help people manage the programme. The process involves the collection of significant change (SC) stories emanating from the field level, and the systematic selection of the most significant of these stories by panels of designated stakeholders or staff. Once changes have been captured, various people sit down together, read the stories aloud, and have regular and often in-depth discussions about the value of these reported changes.

14. Concentric Circles Evaluation Approach

Based on the combination of 2 research approaches - ethnography and action research - this approach focuses on actual practices of use and interaction with technologies in the wider context of people's lives and social and cultural structures ("communicative ecologies"). Placing users and producers at the centre of the research process is deemed important if useful analytical frameworks are to be developed. Ethnography places a project in relevant local and non-local contexts to include those that the project works to impact and those that impact the project. Action research means that the research process is tightly connected to the activities of a project in 3 possible ways: active participation, action-based methods, and action generation.

15. Understanding the Overlap in Programme Evaluation Terminology

[This appendix serves to supplement the commentary in The Drum Beat (Issue #302) by Jane Bertrand, dated June 6 2005.] "The available evaluation textbooks often provide useful glossaries of terms that help the health professional or student of programme evaluation to grasp the lexicon of terms used in this field. However, many people are unclear how one set of terms (e.g., formative-process-summative evaluation) relates to another (e.g., input-process-output-outcome). Are they totally different? Do they overlap?"

[top]

---

Please VOTE!

In what direction should current e-Health research and technical development go?

Direction:

• Diagnosing through mobile phones.
• Certifying phone services as coming from authentic health providers.
• Building a menu of types of health providers (e.g., MD, traditional, clinic, pharmacy) into mobiles.
• Linking remote clinics with specialists.
• Linking communities in "the last mile" with hospital or clinic diagnosis and care centres.

VOTE and COMMENT!

~ RESULTS thus far (October 16):

Direction:

46%: Linking communities in "the last mile" with hospital or clinic diagnosis and care centres.

29%: Linking remote clinics with specialists.

15%: Diagnosing through mobile phones.

6%: Building a menu of types of health providers (e.g., MD, traditional, clinic, pharmacy) into mobiles.

4%: Certifying phone services as coming from authentic health providers.

[top]

---

The Editor of The Drum Beat is Kier Olsen DeVries.

Please send material for The Drum Beat to The CI's Editorial Director - Deborah Heimann dheimann@comminit.com

The Drum Beat seeks to cover the full range of communication for development activities. Inclusion of an item does not imply endorsement or support by The Partners.

To reproduce any portion of The Drum Beat, click here for our policy.

To subscribe, click here.