Sesame Workshop

Sesame Workshop

Health(c): Marketing and Youth Conference

World Health Organization - Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health

April 17-19 2002

Fabrica, Treviso, Italy

Presented by Gary Knell

CEO

Sesame Workshop

Contact: elizabeth.nisbet@sesameworkshop.org

Click here to download the original power point presentation from the WHO site.



All children deserve a chance to learn and grow.

To be prepared for school.

To better understand the world and each other.

To think, dream and discover...

Sesame Workshop

Sesame Workshop is a not-for-profit educational organisation dedicated to creating educational media content to help children reach their highest potential.

Our work begins with research and an understanding of children's needs (educational and developmental) at every age.

The Workshop began with the experiment of Sesame Street 33 years ago and now creates content for all media, around the world, for children 2-14.

Effective Communication

Around the world, Sesame Workshop makes a measurable difference in children's lives by approaching content development in the following way - whether the goal is to promote health or provide early education:

• Clear understanding of the need
• Identification of a single-minded message
• Developmentally-appropriate content for every age
• Cultural and social relevance
• Creative solutions to leverage the power of the medium

Creating Effective Communication: The Sesame Workshop Model

• Dynamic collaboration between creative producers, educational content specialists and researchers
• Curriculum goals developed by local educators
• Formative research to assist the production process
• Content review by educational experts
• Testing and revision
• Tracking results
• Collaboration with experts helps identify children's greatest needs
• The model results in culturally and socially relevant content
  
  • local sets
  • local Muppets
  • country-specific educational goals
  • may use several languages
  • appropriate combination of media to reach audience -including TV, radio, outreach

Applying the Model to Create Health Content

Local health specialists:

• identify health needs
• educate the production team about basic facts related to specific health needs
• help determine appropriate messages
• provide specific guidelines for producing materials
• work with child development experts to assure age-appropriate messages (ex: children don't need to know why they wash hands; respond to modeling of handwashing)

Examples of Health Content

Health, Hygiene, and Exercise: Alam Simsim - Egypt, Plaza Sesamo - Mexico, U.S.

Nutrition: Sesame Street - U.S., Mexico

Sickness and doctor visits: US outreach kits

Immunisation: PSAs in US featuring Grover, Bert, and Ernie, Egypt

Asthma: Outreach kit - US

Lead poisoning: Outreach kit - US

Sex education: 3-2-1 Contact special for children 8 - 12 featuring teenage actors

Drugs: 3-2-1 Contact special for children 8 - 12 featuring teenage actors

Alcohol: Series of PSAs with Xerox in Mexico

Ensuring Success

• Reaching out to support network (parents, caregivers, educators)
• Commitment to the long-term (repeated messages over a long period)
• Research and testing, testing, testing
• The right content for the right age

Examples for reaching out to parents:

3-2-1-Contact special to teach children "everything they wanted to know about sex": Parents wanted the content to be values-free so they could teach children their own values. Materials were made available to parents before the show aired.

Examples of changes from testing:

in 3-2-1- Contact, children had difficulty understanding terminology in the sex special. Producers added printed words on-screen and a mid-show recap to aid comprehension.