Engaging Communities for Health and Social Change

Community engagement is the process of inviting and empowering community members to be their own agents of change through individual and collective action. This integrated, rights-based approach to social and behavior change (SBC) fosters deliberate collaboration between communities and the institutions that serve them. A core component of community engagement is community mobilization, defined as a capacity-strengthening process through which communities, groups or institutions identify and address pressing health or social issues. This technical brief describes the Community Action Cycle (CAC) phases and steps as an approach to engaging communities for social change. The brief also provides guidance on adapting the CAC for different contexts and program needs. A selection of projects results is summarized to demonstrate key outcomes from community engagement efforts undertaken by Save the Children in various countries.