Social and Behavioral Change: Core Competencies and Tools for Success

Presented by:Tom Davis and Carolyn Wetzel from Food for the Hungry, Phil Moses from FANTA-2 and Ashley Aakesson from PATH

While some Social and Behavioral Change (SBC) tools and methods have been disseminated to health/nutrition staff in some organizations, there are still many organizations that are not using the best tools available for SBC, and gaps exist in staff SBC competencies. Organizations that are using these new tools are often seeing phenomenal changes in behavior (practices) in different sectors. Many of these tools are developed for (or adaptable to) use in non-health/nutrition sectors where they could help improve adoption rates of Ag, NRM and other practices. During this participatory session, participants learned about the top ten core competencies needed for social and behavioral change in food security programs and discuss methods and tools for building these core competencies. They also discussed next steps in assuring that all food security implementers have opportunities to fill in the gaps in their SBC competencies.