Friendship Bench Scale Strategy
Friendship Bench as the doer at scale
We have developed the ‘Hub and Spoke Model’ which provides us with a structured model of scaling through our implementation teams. The Hub and Spoke model is facilitating the decentralisation of the teams into their respective provinces. This will support our scale strategy as we expand from operating in six provinces to all 10 provinces in Zimbabwe.
Capacitating others to be doers at scale
The Friendship Bench model continues to go through an iterative process to enable attaining of the scale status where we capacitate others to be doers at scale. We work with implementation partners locally and internationally to replicate our model, adapted to their own context. In Zimbabwe, we are working with six implementing partners where we train their members to deliver Problem Solving Therapy.
To ensure our work is adaptable to different contexts, we initially conduct a situational analysis which is a two-step approach that includes submission of a Suitability Checklist by the interested party which is reviewed by the Friendship Bench team. We conduct a Theory of Change workshop that underpisn the path we take to integrate Friendship Bench into existing programming and context. During the ToC we invite other key stakeholders identified as critical during the situational analysis to build consensus and identify assumptions, barriers, and define indicators that inform us of the feasibility, acceptability and fidelity of the programme.
Friendship Bench in A Box – Catalyst for scale and fidelity
We are well positioned to take the Friendship Bench deeper (impact) and wider (reach), strengthening our national reach as well as taking the work globally. We have developed a proof of concept for our scale model, named: Friendship Bench in a Box, a blueprint, which serves as a step-by-step toolkit for site set up and implementation. This is aimed at strengthening the delivery model and ensuring fidelity of the Friendship Bench model as we scale across and beyond Zimbabwe, through strengthening others to be doers at scale.