Programme

Social and behaviour change

Promoting positive changes in knowledge, attitudes and behaviours towards children

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Challenge

Social and Behaviour Change (SBCC) aims to empower children, families communities with the knowledge they need to exercise their rights and reach their full potential.

In general, parents and caregivers have the best intentions for their children – but sometimes they lack the proper information to make the right decisions. For example, mothers may be unaware about the importance of exclusively breastfeeding their babies up to the age of 6 months; parents may discipline their children by corporal or verbal punishment rather than by using more positive methods; or parents may be unaware about the developmental benefits of enrolling their children in pre-school education programmes.

For very young children, a family’s ability to engage in positive parenting practices is the most important factor in their health and development. But the family’s skills can be enhanced by supportive social norms, as well as access to quality health, nutrition and educational services, which in turn need to be supported by the national and local authority allocating adequate resources.

SBC is defined in UNICEF as:

"An evidence-based process that is an integral part of programmes and utilises a mix of communication tools, channels and approaches to facilitate dialogue, participation and engagement with children, families, communities, networks for positive social and behaviour change in both development and humanitarian contexts."

Studies show that some sub-optimal child-rearing practices persist across the Sultanate – particularly in regard to early childhood development, security and safety, and inclusion of children with disabilities. For example:

Many expectant mothers do not attend the full number of recommended of ante-natal check-ups during their pregnancies despite those services being available. This is seen as one factor contributing to the plateau in declining infant mortality rates over the past decade.
Only 23 per cent of children in Oman are exclusively breastfed as recommended for the first 6 months of life.
Rates of stunting and wasting in children under five remain relatively high at 11.4 per cent and 9.3 per cent respectively.
Socio-cultural factors, such as the perceived importance of home care by family or relatives during the first three years of life, contribute to low rates of participation in early childhood education.

Violence against children continues to occur in the community and its prevention is a government priority. Children with disabilities are more likely to be subject to physical violence than other children and can be exposed to stigmatisation. More needs to be done to ensure children with the disabilities have the same access to opportunities as other children.
Children in Oman have access to a wide range of fast-developing technologies that have the potential to improve quality of life. But this privilege also comes with significant risks that need to be identified and addressed. The dissemination and spread of misinformation on social media have the potential to negatively impact children if not properly managed.
Many parents of children with disabilities do not understand the value of inclusion or that it’s their child’s right to be part of society and fully integrated in the education system.

Solution

The Government of Oman is committed to ensuring that families know how to give their children the very best start in life and are able to access high-quality services within their communities. With UNICEF support, the Government has developed a national SBCC strategy and has assembled an inter-ministerial SBC Task Force to implement the strategy.

The overall communication goals of the strategy are to:

Contribute to the scaling up and strengthening of Oman’s IECD and positive parenting interventions.

Contribute to the acceptance, scaling up and strengthening of inclusion of children with disabilities in the education system

Contribute to improving awareness of parents/caregivers, teachers, communities and to foster an environment that will eliminate and stop violence against children in households and schools

The strategy is based on a detailed behavioural analysis conducted through a consultative process. It identifies and prioritizes 23 behaviours that are critical to drive Integrated Early Childhood Development (IECD), Ending Violence Against Children (EVAC), and Inclusion in Oman.

It also identifies multiple groups as the main strategy audience, including caregivers of children under 6 years, caregivers of children under 18 years, adolescents, influencers including grandparents, religious leaders, community leaders, social media influencers, media celebrities, health providers, school educators and policy makers.

The strategy relies on a number of approaches to effect positive change. At policy level, it takes an advocacy-centred approach to ensure that policies and standards are in place, along with robust strategic planning processes. At service-provider level, it relies on building and strengthening the capacity of health providers and educators. For caregivers, the approach focuses on a media campaign and social mobilization within the community to ensure they have the skills, knowledge and motivation they need.

Within the strategy, the three main priority areas are broken down into seven themes. These are: pregnancy and maternal nutrition; IECD – the first 1,000 days,positive parenting and gender equality in caregiving practices; management of childhood illnesses; early stimulation and early learning; adequate nutrition and its impact on childhood development and adolescent nutrition; safety, security and the elimination of violence against children; and inclusion of CWD in the education system.

Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) – COVID-19 Response

Since the very start of the COVID-19 outbreak in Oman in March 2020, UNICEF supported the Government’s Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) response.

During an early spike in cases amongst Oman’s 1.7 million high-risk and hard-to-reach expatriate workers, many of whom do not speak Arabic or English, UNICEF supported the development of a risk communications strategy directed towards this group. Messages were disseminated in 10 languages via SMS text notifications and trusted community influencers.

UNICEF also supported the development and implementation of a parenting communication strategy. This complemented government messaging on COVID-19 prevention and containment measures by addressing the secondary impacts of COVID-19 and providing parents with access to reliable information on overall health (including mental health) and nutrition (including breastfeeding).  Check out the hashtag – #ForOmansChildren – to see related content!

In 2021, UNICEF’s RCCE work is building on the previous year’s successful COVID-19 response strategies and includes a joint campaign with WHO to address vaccine hesitancy.

At the height of the lockdown in Oman, UNICEF launched a #parents4parents social media campaign. Over two months, parents from all walks of life in Oman shared short video clips directed towards other parents providing encouragement during the COVID-19 response and recovery phases, with the overall aim of promoting positive parenting. In the final video of the campaign, we asked children to tell us what they were most looking forward to doing after lockdown.