Planning and Implementing Health Communication Strategies for Social and Behaviour Change Certificate Course

Soul City and the University of Witwatersrand, School of Public Health have collaborated in the development and launch of a new concentration in social and behaviour change communication (SBCC) within the University of Witwatersrand's Masters of Public Health (MPH) programme.

Seeking to develop critical SBCC competencies (knowledge, skills, values) among participants, the full syllabus of the programme includes five units that reflect recommendations emanated from a Consultative Meeting held in January 2009 at the University of Witwatersrand, with the participation of academics and professionals with relevant experience in SBCC. These units also reflect main competency areas of a series of training modules that C-Change has developed for short-term face-to-face and online training. Each unit is also offerred as a Certificate Course.

This is a unit for Part II of the MPH qualification in the field of SBCC. The unit aims to develop capacity in applying formative research to programme planning. Students should develop skills in developing programme goals and objectives and using logical frameworks. The course will address the analysis and segmentation of populations so that interventions and programmes can be appropriately targeted. Additionally, students should develop basic programme management skills.