Effectiveness of approach Sample Clauses

Effectiveness of approach. The IEC/BCC approach was primarily that of passing on health messages and advice through a trained community health worker (relais) who were given materials based on the C-IMCI model. Their main activities were health education sessions and interpersonal advice and counseling during home visits. IEC/BCC was supported by an enabling environment created by the community mobilization discussed above. i.e. community leadership, entities and resource persons were all in support of these messages and behavior change. They were outspoken, many organized community health days, promoted improvements in water points and the construction of latrines. Thus mothers and caretakers were encouraged on all fronts. The validation that the relais received in this regard, in addition to the regular affirmation of these health messages from project Animators, contributed to mothers adopting improved health behaviors, and greater awareness of when to seek services and the availability of health services. Additional creative activities such as the ‘Most Beautiful Baby’ competitions gave mothers interest and an incentive to adopt new behaviors. The ITN distribution incentives were also strategies that promoted healthy behaviors i.e. giving a free net to a mother when her child has completed his/her vaccinations before the age of 12 months, or when she has completed a certain number of antenatal care visits. Targeting BCC based on individual community LQAS results, as was discussed already, was another strategy that really seemed to help in improving health indicators as well. In the last year of the project, the project Animators were even asked to do mini surveys of 19 households every month to continue pin-pointing needs in IEC/BCC, and respond to them. In addition to the above, the project used the local radio station to share CS messages,