Men’s Engagement in Family Planning
Increasingly, family planning programs understand the need to foster male partners’ active and supportive roles in planning their families. Family planning is often seen as solely a woman’s concern, and yet many women do not have the power to access and use contraception without the permission, cooperation, or support of their spouses or family members. Moreover, norms of masculinity in many areas place a high value on men’s virility and ability to father children and discourage health-seeking behaviors of men, which can be perceived as a sign of weakness.
Men’s roles in family planning may range from open communication and shared decision-making with their female partners about ideal family size and family planning methods, to financial support for accessing family planning, to men’s own uptake of vasectomy and condom use. Efforts to encourage men to become involved in planning their families can also lead to overall improvements in couples’ communication.
Becoming a Model Man
FHI 360, in partnership with Advancing Partners & Communities, implemented Emanzi, a peer intervention program in Uganda, to teach men how to become better husbands and partners. Emanzi, which means role model in the local language, introduces the basic concepts of gender and gender norms, reflects on the injustice of violence against women, encourages positive communication among couples, and reviews the benefits of family planning and HIV testing. More than 850 men ages 18 to 45 have graduated from the program, and an evaluation is under way. Learn more about Emanzi in this presentation given at the 2016 Gender 360 Summit.
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
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
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
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.
Drug Shops
Until recently, the practice of utilizing drug shops to increase access to injectable contraceptives had not received sufficient attention in the literature. This new APC brief discusses the promising strategy. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has also developed a high-impact practice brief on family planning provision through both drug shops and pharmacies.
CHSS
Photo Journal - Community Engagement, Stories Of Change: Sustaining Health Facility Improvements Program
July 2019 | Photo Gallery
APC's Sustaining Health Facility Improvements (SHFI) program in Sierra Leone aims to engage communities, health service providers, and district authorities in building better systems, structures, and processes for conducting maintenance and preventive maintenance of health facilities by mobilizing community and government resources to fund it. This booklet provides stories of the work the FMCs and their communities have done, as they devote their time, resources, and energy to maintaining and improving their community PHUs.
Community Health Systems Framework
This framework maps out a community service delivery system for family planning within a supportive political, socio-cultural environment. It highlights inputs, stakeholders, and other elements to consider when developing and strengthening community-based FP programs.
Ebola Transmission Prevention & Survivor Services, Sierra Leone
October 2017 | Project Highlight
In Sierra Leone, APC has received USAID Global Health Ebola Team funding to implement the Ebola Transmission Prevention & Survivor Services project in support of the Comprehensive Program for Ebola Survivors (CPES), jointly led by the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MOHS) and the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs.
District Summary: Western Area Urban
This District Summary provides detailed information on the work performed by APC in Western Area Urban District under the Post-Ebola Rebuilding Health Services project.
Program Overview: Sierra Leone, Liberia & Guinea
October 2016 | Publication
The Ebola Transmission Prevention and Survivor Services Program (ETP & SS) launched in July 2016 and is operating under the umbrella of priorities set by USAID’s Global Health Ebola Team. The program works with ministries of health and nongovernmental organizations in regions of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea that are most affected by the Ebola outbreak.
Sierra Leone: Community Engagement Implementation Strategy & Toolkit
Advancing Partners & Communities has drafted a community engagement strategy for adoption and use by all implementing partners in the project’s five districts. In line with the project’s goal of strengthening health services, the strategy focuses on district- and facility-level interventions and emphasizes the role of community health workers (CHWs). The strategy complements other community-based interventions.
Strengthening Community Health Systems through CHWs and mHealth
This paper details new learning and next steps from CORE Group’s Fall 2014 Global Health Practitioner Conference. Participants at the conference explored the role of NGOs in strengthening health systems from a primary health care perspective that includes community systems, with a focus on supporting community health workers (CHWs).
Using Measurements of Unmet Need to Inform Program Investments for Health Service Integration
June 2014 | Journal Article
This journal article discusses how Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data could potentially inform optimal strategies to reach women having unmet need with contraceptive services through integrated service delivery. The analysis has the potential to provide program managers with an evidence-based road map indicating which service-delivery platforms offer the greatest potential to reach the largest number of women with unmet need for contraception.
PMA2014/Ethiopia
This infographic is designed to show key family planning indicators and indicators for access, equity, quality, and choice for households in Ethiopia using family planning services from January to March 2014.
