178904 Improving quality and assessing impact at the child level on an Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) program in Africa using an adapted Child Status Index (CSI)

Monday, October 27, 2008: 12:48 PM

Sandra Dalebout, MPH , Project HOPE, Millwood, VA
Dionisio Matos , Project HOPE Mozambique, Maputo, Mozambique
Nelson Prada , Project HOPE Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia
John Bronson , Project HOPE, Millwood, VA
Renslow D. Jr Sherer, MD , Project HOPE and University of Chicago, Millwood, VA
     
Background

Project HOPE has been conducting an OVC program in Namibia and Mozambique since 2004 aimed at improving economic status and quality of life of 45,000 OVC and strengthening the capacity of families to provide care and support to 75,000 OVC. Our integrated model provides health education, parenting skills training, and economic strengthening to OVC caregivers. Our hypothesis is that providing caregivers with the skills and education to better provide for their children, including OVC, and providing them with the means to do it through economic strengthening, the lives of the OVC will improve.

Funded through USAID PEPFAR, MEASURE Evaluation and Duke University developed the Child Status Index (CSI) tool to help OVC programs better meet the needs of OVC across six domains (health, nutrition, education, protection, shelter, & psychosocial support). The CSI tool is designed to be used at the household level and provides a way of ensuring the child is provided for at every level by using a scoring mechanism to identify problem areas. As Project HOPE was already collecting data at the child level for the same purposes, as well as to measure the impact of our program, we underwent a process to adapt the CSI to our program to use the tool as intended as well as using it to better measure the impact of our program at the child level.

Results

The first step in the process was to convene a meeting with the field teams to map out the data currently being collected, ensure the data was harmonized across countries, and to add indicators for any domain we were not yet collecting. The second step was to redesign the tool based on our changes for use at the household level. The process, modified tool, and data collected to date will be presented.

Conclusions

Addressing the needs of OVC is an enormous undertaking. Assessing the needs of OVC at the household level to improve program quality and to measure the impact of our programs is crucial to determining best practices that can be employed throughout Africa.

Learning Objectives:
By the end of the presentation, participants will be able to discuss the methodology used and results to date of improving quality and measuring impact at the child level on an OVC program in two countries in Africa using a modified CSI tool and adapt the methodology to their own programs.

Keywords: International Health, Quality Improvement

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am the headquarters-based Program Manager for this project and led the described M&E effort.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

See more of: Monitoring, Evaluation, and Outcomes
See more of: International Health