As with any family planning service, quality community-based family planning (CBFP) services require competent and well-prepared staff that can safely provide methods and help family planning clients make informed choices. A number of cadres of health professionals, including nurses, nurse-midwives, clinical officers, physicians, and well-trained community health workers (CHWs), can safely provide various family planning methods. Experience around the world shows that CHWs can be trained to safely distribute pills, condoms, spermicides, and injectables. Additionally, CHWs are viewed as acceptable community-based distribution (CBD) agents due to their shared cultural background, familiarity in the community and deep understanding of the clients they serve.

 

In this Training section of the CBFP Toolkit, program managers and service providers can access various training techniques and curricula for training community health workers as well as program managers and supervisors. Mobile service teams may include clinicians, especially if they provide long-acting and permanent methods such as female sterilization and vasectomy.

 

For resources on training clinicians in family planning, please see K4Health’s package of method-specific toolkits, including toolkits on Injectables, Implants, IUD, Oral Contraceptives, Condoms, and the Standard Days Method. A toolkit on Female Sterilization and Vasectomy is forthcoming.

 

While these curricula are an important part of helping to prepare staff to counsel clients and provide methods, it should be kept in mind that the focus of training programs should be on building basic competencies and ensuring training when the desired competency standards are not met.

 

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