ARFH has been at the forefront of health workforce development in Nigeria, with our strongest niche in Family Planning and RMNCH. We are a lead indigenous NGO supporting the GoN to implement its task-shifting & task sharing policy through capacity building for all cadres of health care providers including Physicians, Nurse Midwives, and CHEWs.
For so many years ARFH has been responsible for supporting the FMOH and other partners in conducting the LARC training; ARFH was the first organization to Pilot the DMPA-SC/Self-Injection capacity building training in Gombe in 2014 with support from FHI360. Since 2015, ARFH with support from the UNFPA implemented this similar model being proposed as an integrated delivery of scale-up of DMPA-SC and LARC capacity building and delivery in Kebbi, Gombe, Adamawa, Sokoto, and Ebonyi states.
The training of CHEWs on the Increasing Access to Contraceptive through Training (INACT) project was preceded by Human Resource capacity assessment of 645 PHCs in seven states through Low Dose High Frequency (LDHF) fresher’s and refresher courses, and training of trainers (ToTs) on family planning in Oyo, Edo, Kebbi, Gombe, Ebonyi states and FCT.
The training led to improved access to FP services in over 250 health facilities, especially for women in hard-to-reach communities with low contraceptive ARFH’s key component in the MNCH2 project was to invest extensively in improving the capacity of Human Resources for Health through trainings deviating from the traditional training that are either stand-alone focusing on a single thematic area or trainings which are didactic that does not necessarily translate to improvement in skills or attitude of the health care worker at the service point.
Other issues ranged from duplication of training or loss of man hour due to repeated pulling of the providers from their point of services to attend such workshops which may cause negative health outcomes at the facilities.
Key learning from this project Evidence included that the competency-based training improved the knowledge, skills, and attitude of Service Providers in Integrated Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (IMNCH) in the six program states. This approach enhanced quality service provision, especially the on-boarding of CHEWs that Nurses are task shifting to who hitherto are new to providing full-scale services. The program adopted the integrated approach to MNCH training which includes Basic Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care (BeMoNC), Healthy Timing and Spacing Of Pregnancy (HTSP), Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses (IMCI), and Routine Immunization (RI) was demonstrated as feasible in one package.