Community-Based Family Planning

Community-based family planning (CBFP) brings family planning information and methods to women and men where they live rather than requiring them to visit health facilities. One of the main objectives of CBFP programs is to increase access to and choice of contraceptive methods in underserved areas. CBFP programs work through a variety of channels, including community health workers, community depots, drug shops, mobile services, and the private sector. Advancing Partners & Communities supports the expansion of CBFP services to help accomplish the goal of making the full range of modern family planning methods available at the community level.  CBFP services involve a significant level of community ownership and should also be linked to the government’s health system so as to not duplicate, replace, or ignore the existing system.

Photo credit: Amy Cotter/USAID

Below you will find links to resources created by APC and other organizations.

External Resources

Partnerships to Advance Family Planning: Lessons from Senegal
December 2014 | Summary

Participants at the annual meeting of the Ouagadougou Partnership examine lessons learned from Senegal as they work to advance women’s health and family planning in the subregion.

Community-Based Family Planning Toolkit
July 2014 | Toolkit

This toolkit presents a collection of carefully selected resources for health policy makers, program managers, service providers, information officers, and others.

Keeping community health workers in Uganda motivated: key challenges, facilitators, and preferred program inputs
January 2014 | Study

This study examined factors related to community health workers (CHWs) motivation and level of activity in three family planning programs in Uganda. In the face of global health worker shortages, CHWs are an important health care delivery strategy for underserved populations. In Uganda, community-based programs often use volunteer CHWs to extend services, including family planning, in rural areas.

Facts for Family Planning
October 2013 | Publication

This publication from USAID contains 10 easy-to-read chapters on important FP topics such as delaying first pregnancy, spacing pregnancies, understanding fertility, and FP methods, with special chapters focused on unmarried youth and HIV/AIDS.

A guide to family planning for community health workers and their clients
December 2012 | Flip Chart

This flip-chart from WHO is a tool for use during family planning counseling or group sessions with clients.

Community-based Family Planning Best Practices Manual
December 2011 | Manual

This manual from WellShare International reflects the combined lessons learned and best practices identified during implementation of the Uganda Child Spacing Program.

Family Planning Sustainability Checklist
November 2011 | Assessment

A project assessment tool for designing and monitoring the sustainability of community-based family planning services.

Basics of Community-Based Family Planning Training Curriculum Facilitator's Guide
April 2009 | Guide

The workshop was designed for middle to senior level managers working in family planning or interested in integrating community based family planning programming into their current project(s).

Basics of Community-Based Family Planning Training Curriculum Participant's Guide
April 2009 | Guide

The workshop was designed for middle to senior level managers working in family planning or interested in integrating community based family planning programming into their current project(s).

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Below are select resources related to key issues within community health systems strengthening.

Gender Norms of Health Care Providers

Gender norms are part of the community and affect everyone. Community health programs must recognize that everyone, including program designers and healthcare providers themselves, are socialized into certain ways of thinking and behaving as women and men, and about women and men. As a result, women and men often experience stigma and discrimination from healthcare providers. Healthcare providers should receive training in gender sensitivity to challenge their thinking about gender norms and be mindful of gender issues when interacting with clients.

Female Community Health Volunteer National Survey Report 2014
January 2016 | Report

The 2014 Female Community Health Volunteer (FCHV) survey provides a comprehensive assessment of the FCHV program in Nepal. The document reports the findings of a national-level quantitative survey of FCHVs and from complementary qualitative interviews with key national, district level, and community stakeholders. The results are intended to increase understanding of the current status of the FCHV program and reflect on stakeholder perceptions of program experience and performance.

Community Health Worker Motivation

In the face of global health worker shortages, the use of community health workers (CHWs) is an important health care delivery strategy for underserved populations. In Uganda, community-based programs often use volunteer CHWs to extend services, including family planning, in rural areas. This study examined factors related to CHW motivation and level of activity in three family planning programs in Uganda.

Community Health Policy Matters
May 2017 | Video

APC’s Community Health Policy Matters video tells the story of fictional characters Winnie and Mary, and how a fragmented health system affects each woman’s ability to access family planning services in her respective community. This animated video highlights how policy can improve the health system for women.

Nepal’s Community-based Health System Model: Structure, Strategies, and Learning
January 2016 | Brief

The Community-based Health System Model briefs identify and discuss critical health system inputs and processes that have contributed to the implementation and expansion of community-based service delivery in different countries. Countries were selected for their geographic diversity, type of service delivery model, and programmatic scale-up. This brief reviews Nepal’s community health model to inform future policy, program design, and implementation in other countries.

Keeping community health workers in Uganda motivated: key challenges, facilitators, and preferred program inputs
January 2014 | Study

This study examined factors related to community health workers (CHWs) motivation and level of activity in three family planning programs in Uganda. In the face of global health worker shortages, CHWs are an important health care delivery strategy for underserved populations. In Uganda, community-based programs often use volunteer CHWs to extend services, including family planning, in rural areas.

Community Health Workers Provision of Injectables

CHW provision of injectables is an important issue that should be widely expanded:

Sayana® Press: A Guide for Trainers of Providers
January 2015 | Training Guide

This trainer’s guide provides content for training on the progestin-only injectable contraceptive Sayana® Press. These materials were first used in 2012 to train facility- and community-based providers on use of Sayana Press (formerly depo-subQ in Uniject) in acceptability studies in Senegal and Uganda.

Long-Acting and Reversible Contraceptives

Long-acting reversible contraception (LARC)—intrauterine devices and contraceptive implants—are safe and appropriate contraceptive methods for most women and adolescents. Expanding access to LARC for young people will drastically reduce the rate of unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions, and maternal and infant morbidity and mortality across the globe.

Situation Analysis of Community-Based Referrals for Family Planning
March 2016 | Brief

This analysis aims to review the evidence on current models of community-to-facility referrals for LARC/PM, to provide recommendations on promising models that should be tested for effectiveness, and to provide an agenda for future research.

Vouchers: Addressing inequities in access to contraceptive services
March 2015 | Brief

The just published HIP brief written by Ben Bellows, Population Council; Elaine Menotti, USAID; and Shawn Malarcher, USAID, describes how vouchers can address key challenges for family planning programs, discusses the potential contribution to improving the quality and use of contraceptive services, outlines key issues for planning and implementation, and identifies knowledge gaps.

CHSS

Strengthening Community-based Family Planning Systems through Collaborative Improvement in Busia District, Uganda
April 2017 | Brief

In this second issue of the APC Quality Improvement Brief, APC describes the progress to date in systematic efforts to improve the quality of CBFP in Busia District and plans to scale up these efforts in two other districts in Uganda.

Community-Based Family Planning Course
January 2017 | E-Learning

This course orients the learner to the essential elements for designing and implementing successful, sustainable CBFP programs. It describes three popular approaches to CBFP—provision by community health workers (CHWs), mobile outreach services, and drug shops—and provides an opportunity for users to practice what they learned using a case study.

Applying a Quality Improvement Model to Strengthen Community-based Family Planning Services in Busia District, Uganda
April 2016 | Brief

In February 2015 APC, implemented by FHI 360 in Uganda, conducted a collaborative site assessment for CBFP programs with the MOH in the three pilot sites, Bulumbi, Buhehe and Buteba. The assessment identified areas for service delivery improvement, which were quantified by the QI monitoring that started in June 2015.

September 24, 2014 | Blog

K4Health's new blog post from FHI360's Kirsten Krueger, MSW and John Stanback, PhD, promotes task sharing as a solution to the global health worker crisis and provides practical actions individuals can do to support task sharing in family planning.

July 14, 2014 | Article

An easy-to-use form of the injectable contraceptive Depo-Provera was introduced in July 2014 in Burkina Faso, the first of four African countries in which it will be rolled out this year.

April 16, 2014 | Event

On Tuesday, December 9, 2014, Advancing Partners & Communities hosted the Standard Days Method (SDM) in Community-Based Family Planning (CBFP) programs Technical Consultation. This meeting featured presentations from global leaders in CBFP and SDM, including country program staff from Mali, India, Rwanda and Uganda.

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