In October 1997, Management Sciences for Health, in collaboration with JHU/CCP, launched the Guinea PRISM Project (Pour Renforcer les Interventions en Sante Maternelle et MST/SIDA). An important part of PRISM's mandate was to build on Guinea's existing system of community-based services initiated under PSI's FAMPOP project in late 1997. Based on an evaluation conducted in March 1998, PRISM developed a new strategy to strengthen the network.
This presentation will outline PRISM's decentralized TA strategy to strengthen the CBD program, and include preliminary impact. The findings will serve to highlight "lessons learned" from Guinea that can contribute to the development of other CBD programs in Francophone Africa. Specifically, the presentation will review PRISM's strategy for strengthening the CBD as it focuses on the quality of services of the existing network through on-the-job training, formative supervision, and linkages to the national public health system via appointments of CBD coordinators at each "Direction Prefectural de Santé." The second phase will expand the current network to double the number of agents, including more female agents, through community mobilization efforts. Importantly, innovative ways of "demedicalizing" contraceptive pills and of integrating CBD efforts in the workplace will also be included. The impact and the needs for further strengthening will be monitored by a renewed H/MIS. The presentation will review these various components.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant will be able to: 1) describe the demographic characteristics and sources of motivation of the community health agents in the Guinean CBD network, as found through the 1998 evaluation of this system conducted by the MSH/PRISM project; 2) identify the primary challenges to the functioning of the community-based system and ability of its agents to reach all of its target population with a full range of contraceptive products; and 3) discuss MSH/PRISM's approach to strengthening the "inherited" (existing) community-based services system, and the preliminary results of the implementation of its strategy
Keywords: Community-Based Health Promotion, Reproductive Health
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: The services of Management Sciences for Health (and Johns Hopkins University Center for Communications Programs) through its USAID-financed PRISM-Guinee Project will be discussed in this presentation
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.