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Developing and Strengthening Community Health Worker Programs at Scale

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Developing and Strengthening Community Health Worker Programs at Scale Developing and Strengthening Community Health Worker Programs at Scale A Reference Guide for Program Managers and Policy Makers Developing and Strengthening Community Health Worker Programs at Scale A Reference Guide for Program Managers and Policy Makers The Maternal and Child Health Integrated Program (MCHIP) is the USAID Bureau for Global Health’s flagship maternal, neonatal and child health (MNCH) program. MCHIP supports programming in maternal, newborn and child health, immunization, family planning, malaria and HIV/AIDS, and strongly encourages opportunities for integration. Cross-cutting technical areas include water, sanitation, hygiene, urban health and health systems strengthening. www.mchip.net This report was made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), under the terms of the Leader with Associates Cooperative Agreement GHS-A-00-08-00002-00. The contents are the responsibility of the Maternal and Child Health Integrated Program (MCHIP) and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government. © 2013 by Jhpiego Corporation. All rights reserved. Table of Contents SECTION 1: SETTING THE STAGE Chapter 1. Introduction (Steve Hodgins, Lauren Crigler, and Henry Perry) Chapter 2. A Brief History of CHW Programs (Henry Perry and Shelly Amieva) Chapter 3. National Planning for Community Health Worker Programs Planning (Jessica Gergen, Lauren Crigler, and Henry Perry Chapter 4. Governing Large-Scale Community Health Worker Programs (Simon Lewin and Uta Lehmann) Chapter 5. The Financing of Large-Scale Community Health Worker Programs (Henry Perry, Francisco Sierra-Esteban, and Peter Berman) SECTION 2: HUMAN RESOURCES Chapter 6. Community Health Worker Roles and Tasks (Claire Glenton and Dena Javadi) Chapter 7. Recruitment of Community Health Workers (Wanda Jaskiewicz and Rachel Deussom) Chapter 8. Training of Community Health Workers for Large-Scale Programs (Iain Aitken) Chapter 9. Supervision (Lauren Crigler, Jessica Gergen and Henry Perry) Chapter 10. What Motivates Community Health Workers? Designing Programs that Incentivize Community Health Worker Performance and Retention Incentives (Christopher Colvin) SECTION 3: CHW PROGRAMS IN CONTEXT Chapter 11. Community Health Worker Relationships with Other Parts of the Health System (Henry Perry, Steve Hodgins, Lauren Crigler, and Karen LeBan) Chapter 12. Community Participation in Large-Scale Community Health Worker Programs (Karen LeBan, Henry Perry, Lauren Crigler, and Christpher Colvin) SECTION 4: ACHIEVING IMPACT Chapter 13. Scaling Up and Maintaining Effective Community Health Worker Programs at Scale (Steve Hodgins, Simon Lewin, Sharon Tsui and Henry Perry) Chapter 14. Measurement and Data Use for Community Health Services (Steve Hodgins, Dena Javadi and Henry Perry) Chapter 15. Wrap up (Henry Perry, Lauren Crigler, and Steve Hodgins) Draft December 2013 i APPENDIX Appendix 1. Case studies Case Studies of Large-Scale Community Health Worker Programs: Examples from Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Nepal and Pakistan (Henry Perry, Rose Zulliger, Kerry Scott, Dena Javadi, and Jess Gergen) Appendix 2. Current Perspectives of Large Scale Community Health Worker Programs: Summary of Findings from Key Informants Opinions (Sharon Tsui, Elizabeth Salisbury- Afshar, Rose Zulliger and Henry Perry) ii Draft December 2013 Authors and Their Affiliations SENIOR WRITING TEAM Lauren Crigler, Crigler Global Consulting, formerly with the USAID-funded Health Care Improvement (HCI) Project Claire Glenton, Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services Steve Hodgins, Saving Newborn Lives, formerly with Maternal and Child Health Integrated Project (MCHIP) Karen LeBan, The CORE Group Simon Lewin, Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services and Medical Research Council of South Africa Henry Perry, Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health OTHER SENIOR AUTHORS Iain W. Aitken, previously with Management Sciences for Health and Harvard School of Public Health Christopher Colvin, University of Western Cape School of Public Health (South Africa) Jessica Gergen, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Wanda Jaskiewicz, CapacityPlus/IntraHealth International Sharon Tsui, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health COLLABORATING AUTHORS Shelly Amieva, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Peter Berman, Harvard School of Public Health Rachel Deussom, CapacityPlus/IntraHealth International Dena Javadi, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Uta Lehman, University of Western Cape School of Public Health (South Africa) Elizabeth Salisbury-Afsar, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Kerry Scott, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Francisco Sierra-Esteban, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Rose Zulliger, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Draft December 2013 iii iv Draft December 2013 SECTION 1: SETTING THE STAGE Introduction Steve Hodgins, Lauren Crigler, and Henry Perry 18 September 2013 Key Points • The current enthusiasm for large-scale community health workers (CHWs) needs to be tempered with a sobering reflection on the disappointments that followed a similar wave of enthusiasm in the 1970s and 1980s, noting challenges in scaling up and sustaining large-scale public sector CHW programs. • Large-scale public sector CHW programs are complex entities that require adapting a systems perspective to the national and local contexts. • CHWs are a diverse group of community-level workers. This guide distinguishes between two levels of CHWs: 1) full-time, paid, with formal pre-service training, and 2) volunteer, part-time workers. • The guide attempts to avoid categorical recommendations, but rather offers suggested issues and principles to consider and, when possible, brings in relevant program experience. Draft December 2013 1–1 INTRODUCTION Recently, a renewed interest in large-scale community health worker (CHW) programs has been seen globally. This renewal provides an opportune moment to take stock of issues and challenges such programs face and what can be done to make them as effective as possible. With this in mind, this manual is intended to be used a practical guide for policymakers and program managers wishing to develop or strengthen a CHW program, drawing lessons from other countries that have implemented CHW programs at-scale. Throughout, we discuss major policy and programmatic issues that decision-makers and planners need to consider when designing, implementing, scaling up or strengthening a national-level CHW program. We offer an overview of specific challenges CHW programs face, country lessons, tools, and other resources that may be helpful, while incorporating relevant programmatic examples as much as possible. Proceeding from broader, higher-level issues down to the more specific and operational ones, this manual sets the stage with a section addressing planning, governance and finance. The next major section considers a range of important issues related to human resources, notably: roles and tasks of the CHW, recruitment, training, supervision, and motivation. The third section concerns the context for community health work, looking at both the health system and the community. The fourth and final section addresses operational issues essential for achieving program impact, such as scaling up and operating at-scale, as well as measurement and data use. All of these functions have critical inter-relations; therefore, design decisions in one area have consequences in many others, as Figure 1 depicts. Within the manual, this concept is reflected in frequent cross-referencing among chapters. Further, the manual includes, as appendices, profiles on a number of large-scale CHW programs and insights arising from interviews with a number of key thought leaders in global CHW work. Figure 1. Overview of CHW program sub-systems and their interactions The contents herein draw particularly upon experiences from large-scale, public sector CHW programs. We have looked comprehensively across a range of factors determining the effectiveness of community health services—and taking a pragmatic view and promoting no single model since CHW programs serve different purposes depending on context. However, we believe that the experiences of other programs often provide useful lessons that can impact decisions to be made regarding CHW programs in additional settings. Specifically, we are interested in the factors that contribute to program effectiveness and performance in institutionalized programs operating in the public sector at-scale. 1–2 Draft December 2013 Although decisions are frequently made to establish or close programs on the basis of “effectiveness,” in many instances, data available are insufficient to make a solid judgment on how effective these programs have actually been. As such, in trying to capture important lessons about what works under which circumstances, wherever possible, we make such inferences based on the best available evidence (which is often thinner than preferred) and on experience and expert judgment arising from those experiences. THE COMMUNITY HEALTH CHALLENGE For more than 50 years, as leaders in primary health care (PHC) have tried to elaborate strategies to better meet the health needs of populations, they have gravitated repeatedly to solutions that involve recruiting and training local people to play roles complementing
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