At a glance
- Communication is key to implementing school-based prevention strategies for HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
- A communication plan can help with program implementation.
- In Module 1: learn to develop a communication plan, guided by a template.
- In Module 1: learn to use plain language to develop effective communication materials.
Communication plan
Communication is key to school-based HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention strategies. The strategies can be used in sexual health education (SHE), sexual health services (SHS), and safe and supportive environments (SSE).
Take time to think about how communication can support your program:
- What do you want to achieve across SHE, SHS, and SSE, and how can communication support your efforts?
- What district- or school-level activities will you conduct to:
- Strengthen staff capacity.
- Increase student access to programs and services.
- Engage parent and community partners.
- Strengthen staff capacity.
Communication planning can help you implement these activities.
Elements of communication plan
Did you know?
Goals
What you want to achieve.
Audience
Who you want to reach.
Messages
What information you want to communicate to your audience.
Methods/Tactics
What you are going to do.
Timeline
How you get everything done and who is responsible.
Budget
How much your communication activities cost.
Evaluation
How you determine if you are successful.
Use the Communication Plan template to develop a communication strategy to support your program implementation.
The template has prompts to guide you through defining some of the elements listed above.
Think about
- What you want to achieve across the SHE, SHS, and SSE strategies.
- What district- or school-level activities will you conduct with the aim:
- Strengthen staff capacity.
- Increase student access to programs and services.
- Engage parent and community partners.
- Strengthen staff capacity.
The template has prompts to guide you through each element of your communication plan.
Developing effective communication materials
Your communication plan will need to include materials specifically for your audience(s). Module 2: Communication Templates and Module 4: Sample Social Media Post and Graphics include templates content. They also have graphics that you can use to develop and customize your materials.
Health literacy best practices checklist
Following the checklist will help you to write for your audience(s) to make your materials more effective.
- Identify the action you want the reader to take after seeing your materials.
- Determine 3–5 messages you will include in your materials.
- Describe in your materials the benefits of taking action—what's in it for them.
- Tell readers only what they need to know—skip unnecessary details that may distract from your main messages and benefits.
- Use plain language that any reader will understand—avoid technical jargon.
- Use images or graphics and data that are relevant to the content.
- Use captions on your images to reinforce your messages.
- Create opportunities for reader interaction—for instance, questions to answer.
- Tell the reader what to expect from reading the material.
- Put the most important information at the beginning of your material and repeat it at the end.
- Use headings, subheadings, or bullets to break up sections of content.
- Use words your audience uses.
- Use active voice.
- Use a friendly, conversational style.
- Use short sentences.
- Use familiar examples.
- Use simple words, and be consistent.
- Avoid abbreviations and acronyms when possible.
- Limit use of statistics.
- Leave white space between columns or sections of content.
- Use bold to emphasize key words.
- Create a layout that aids readability, meaning left-justified and with at least half-inch margins.
- Use bullets to break up large sections of text.
- Use color to aid readability.
- Use images that are relevant to your text.