Empowering Approaches to IYCF Behavior Change Design

Presented by: Joan Jennings, Senior Specialist for Nutrition and Food Technology, TOPS Program/Save the Children;  Maria Jose Joya, Independent Consultant; Maryanne Stone-Jiménez, Independent Consultant

A mother-to-mother support group enables and empowers women to make their own infant and young child nutrition decisions in a safe environment. The approach of the mother-to-mother support group is based on the listening-dialogue-action model developed by the Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire. Another empowering approach is individual/one-to-one counseling or negotiation/reaching-an-agreement based on individual needs at a particular moment.  At the start of this session, participants will explore the essential elements that foster success in changing infant and young child nutrition behavior by looking at empowering approaches that can be used in groups or one-to-one settings:  the listening-dialogue action model, ASPIRE,  and GALIDRAA.

In designing a community-based IYCF intervention, multiple actors must be involved, including mothers, grandmothers, husbands and community leaders. The session continued with small group work to discuss the “who, what , when, where, why” of reaching various caregivers and persons of influence. Through this activity, participants contributed to drafting a framework for project design of community-based IYCF interventions.