A CLOSER LOOK AT COMMUNITY HEALTH AND FAMILY PLANNING IN ACTION

The organizations work with governments and partners to leverage smart mobile technology, strengthen performance, and innovate to cost-effectively deliver high-quality health services. Community health is an effective way of bringing health services to people where they live and is necessary for improving health indicator trends. Effective community health programs have increased universal health coverage (UHC) and contributed to the reduction of maternal, neonatal, and under-five (U5) morbidity and mortality. Community health focuses on addressing health needs at the household level through promotive, protective, preventive, curative, rehabilitative, and palliative approaches. The principles of community health include equity, community ownership, social accountability, and effective linkages with health facilities, making it a critical part of the health structure. Living Goods uses data-driven performance management, incentive systems, regular in-service training, and supportive supervision to help governments ensure there are digitally empowered, equipped, supervised, and compensated community health workers (CHWs) who can deliver high-quality primary health care services. The organization is also involved in efforts to strengthen local health systems, including advocating for increased investments in community health systems and integrating best practices into policies and practice. In the field of reproductive health and family planning, Living Goods is scaling up or implementing several innovations in East Africa. One of these innovations is the provision of comprehensive family planning education and contraceptives by CHWs. This started as a pilot experiment in two districts in Uganda in 2018 but has been expanded to many districts across the country and has started being piloted in Kenya operations. Through these efforts, women of reproductive age are counseled and provided with the opportunity to access a broad range of contraceptives, including pills and condoms, and can also be referred for longer-term methods. Living Goods also leverages technology and CHWs to deliver voluntary family planning services to community members. CHWs are equipped with a phone and the Smart Health app, which has carefully designed workflows that standardize client counseling, assessment, and administration protocols for family planning services. This enables CHWs to facilitate health education sessions, register women of reproductive age taking up or switching family planning methods, determine their eligibility for family planning, recommend an appropriate method, and provide follow-up services. In addition, the application supports training and provides supervisors with real-time performance data for each CHW through analytics dashboards, which support improved monitoring and drive better performance—and ultimately, health impact. All the data generated through these digital health tools is shared with the government and is used to inform decisions for CHW programs at every level. Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) play a crucial role in providing FP/RH care and strengthening the community health strategy at the grassroots level. CHVs like Ann Nyaleso, a 53-year-old mother of two, a farmer, and a government CHV in Kisii County, Kenya, support over 100 families and provide continuous care for expectant mothers and educate them on newborn care, including counseling and referral services on family planning and immunization. CHVs like Ann are equipped with a smartphone and the Smart Health app, which provides them with a task list for the day that helps them prioritize their visits and ensure they deal with urgent matters first. CHVs like Ann have reported proudest moments from changing people's mindsets or behaviors around health issues. For example, Ann once visited a home where a child had been suffering from diarrhea for a few days, and the child's mother believed that this was just a normal part of teething. Ann educated and persuaded the mother to allow her to treat the child, and when she did a follow-up visit the next day, the diarrhea had stopped, and the mother was very happy that her baby was now well and more active. This has helped to save many young lives through timely treatment.