Guideline for community engagement during COVID-19 vaccine : Part 2

Guideline for community engagement during COVID-19 vaccine
• Define: Define and prioritize your key objectives and review them regularly to ensure they are responding to your priorities as the COVID-19 response evolves and vaccine availability and protocols evolve.
• Coordinate: Use existing coordination mechanisms to sensitize communities about the phased introduction, plans for prioritization, effects of the vaccines, and experiences of those who are vaccinated. Examples of such entities include local community- and faith-based organizations; fathers and mothers’ groups; schools; management of old age homes; and youth groups. In addition, it is essential to coordinate among partners under the leadership of national and subnational governments to avoid duplication, fill gaps and make the best use of resources. Develop and maintain an up-to-date contact list of all partners and their focal points and of local level actors.
• Assess and collect: If data from rapid community assessments are available, countries should analyse these first to find out if there is enough information or whether there is an information gap. In cases where there is a social data gap, work with health facilities, social workforce, community volunteers and civil society to conduct community mapping to identify:
 social profile of the community, including the knowledge, perceptions and practices of communities about COVID-19 and the vaccines;
 main communication patterns, channels and language(s) used to share information within the community;
 religion, cultural traditions and practices;
 key audiences and influencers; and
 target populations for phased vaccine rollout, including numbers of health workers, social workers and persons who are at higher risk (e.g. older people and those with comorbidities).
• Advocacy at local level: Communicate with and provide orientation to local level influencers, such as community leaders, religious leaders and local celebrities about COVID-19 vaccines, and get their support for creating an enabling environment for vaccine introduction. Work with local media to promote positive messaging around COVID-19 vaccines. Advocate with local governments to garner support for vaccinators and health workers. Advocacy with organizations that manage homes for older people will also need to be done to get their support for getting access to older people.
• Develop a community action plan: Based on the available social data and profile, develop an action plan. The community plan could be part of the overall microplan. It will be important to engage communities in planning social mobilization and communication activities. The national and subnational plans can be adapted to fit the local context. Messages and materials should be tailored to reflect audience perceptions and knowledge at the local level.
• Implement, monitor and evaluate, and adapt: Implement the community action plan with relevant partners to engage with identified audiences and community. This should include capacity building and ensuring participation and accountability mechanisms. Make sure to identify human, material and financial resource needs. Define staff and partners who will do the work (number of people required) and budget accordingly. Establish an adapted monitoring and evaluation framework, ensuring strong and regular supervision and coordination mechanisms. Close monitoring of field work is essential, and mechanisms should be defined before starting implementation.
• Feedback mechanism: Set up and implement a feedback and rumour tracking system to closely monitor community feedback, concerns, perceptions and misinformation and report to relevant technical partners and sectors. Make sure to respond to rumours and misinformation with evidence-based guidance. Adapt materials, information, methodologies and vaccination strategies based on feedback from communities and evolving perceptions and concerns.