Our Implementation Models

DIRECT IMPLEMENTATION MODEL

Centre of Excellence: Grassroot Soccer has developed a Centre of Excellence (COE) at GRS South Africa’s current operating site in Alexandra with a focus on research, innovation, and showcasing. This has included a number of research projects around programming for adolescent boys and young men and adolescent girls and young women, including mental health, supported by the Oak Foundation and MAC VIVA GLAM. The Centre as it stands today is one of exemplary programme innovations and research, and a better stakeholder experience of GRS programming, whilst also serving the community of Alexandra.

As an Implementing Partner: GRS South Africa has also built partnerships to implement SKILLZ programmes directly under Prime Recipients.

For example, as the primary prevention partner under the USAID Children and Adolescents are My Priority (CHAMP) consortium in partnership with mothers2mothers, GRS South Africa’s Mpumalanga team successfully engaged more than 7,000 orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) and adolescents through GRS’s SKILLZ Core curriculum.

TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE MODEL

GRS South Africa brings expertise as a technical assistance provider with the primary focus on adolescent SRHR, HIV prevention, GBV prevention, and mental health promotion. In this approach, GRS supports partner implementation with a holistic and customised package of support intended to maximise effectiveness, amplify youth voices, use data for decision-making, and deliver collective impact across key prevention and promotion themes for adolescents.

GRS South Africa’s technical assistance approach focuses on comprehensive training, mentorship, and programme support to capacitate implementing partners in the effective delivery of SKILLZ programmes in their respective implementation districts, and position for future scale. GRS provides guidance on best practice for Coach recruitment, training, monitoring and evaluation, and SKILLZ programme implementation. GRS enables partners to reach adolescents in their implementation districts with high-impact programmes, collect implementation data, and evaluate the impact of SKILLZ on the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour of adolescents who participate in SKILLZ.

Since 2016, GRS South Africa has rolled out SKILLZ programming through its technical assistance partnership model, collaborating with diverse partners including CINDI, the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation, Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust, the National Lotteries Commission, South African Football Association Cape Town, Special Olympics South Africa, and UNICEF.

GRS South Africa’s SKILLZ Guyz programme, which integrates mental health content for adolescent boys and young men (ABYM), has been adopted by the South African AIDS Council (SANAC) as one of its main community-based HIV prevention interventions for ABYM across all nine provinces.

Additionally, in partnership with ANOVA Health Institute, GRS South Africa has provided technical assistance to Youth Ambassadors at more than 50 District Health Clinics and local community-based organisations (CBOs) in Limpopo Province to scale its SKILLZ Plus programme with integrated mental health content for youth living with HIV under the USAID Achieving and Sustaining HIV/TB Epidemic Control Project.