Family planning II

PES covers the period 8/82-10/84 and is made on the basis of document review, site visits, and interviews with Ministry of Health (MOH) personnel and project trainees. The Division of Family Health (DFH) - formerly called the National Family Welfare Center - has established six satellite training programs for Enrolled Community Nurses (ECN"s) in provincial medical centers whose training output of 216 ECN"s a year has nearly matched the targeted 300 ECN"s a year. Project training of Clinical Officers (CO"s), however, has been less successful. Only 60 of a planned 270 have been trained and a recent DFH evaluation has revealed that the level of family planning (FP) knowledge and skills among trained CO"s is lower than that among ECN"s (whom CO"s supervise). CO"s do not provide Maternal Child Health/FP services; most are males and could only effectively utilize their knowledge to motivate male clients. Basic training of CO"s has been curative-oriented and does not provide them with the management skills and knowledge of complications arising from FP techniques which they require as RHF managers. Also, available reference and library materials are outdated. Students lack adequate models for practice, and tutors could benefit from updated publications and refresher courses. A key lesson learned is that before initiating the training of any cadre of RHF staff in maternal child health/FP, training goals should be clearly defined and potential problems considered; a needs assessment should have been conducted to ascertain the extent to which the training information would have been utilized. Action decisions include to: continue, and if possible increase,ECN training; and design a new short course to meet specific CO needs (no longer providing clinical FP training to CO"s); hold annual seminars/workshops to update tutors on FP information and training techniques; and implement the DFH to distribute a newsletter to all MOH personnel.