Reaching Communities for Child Health and Nutrition: A Framework for Household and Community IMCI
SummaryText
From the Introduction
This report attempts to clarify current thinking on the Household and Community (HH/C) component of IMCI (Integrated Management of Childhood Illness) herein referred to as HH/C IMCI. Chapter III provides a general introduction to the IMCI approach, including its history and its three components. The remainder of the report focuses on the third component of IMCI, Improving Household and Community Practices. An implementation framework consisting of three programmatic "Elements" is introduced on Chapter IV. The Elements describe the necessary technical content of a HH/C IMCI program, and the multi-sectoral platform which supports the implementation of the three Elements. Chapters V to VIII cover the technical content of each of the three Elements and the platform in more detail. The Elements and platform are illustrated through the experiences of US-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs), known as privatevoluntary organizations (PVOs).
Chapter IX discusses linkages between the framework and other health programs such as Roll Back Malaria and Early Childhood Development. Chapter X discusses in detail the principles underlying the framework that were agreed to at the CORE workshop in January 2001.Chapters XI and XII discuss the role of community mobilization in the implementation of HH/C IMCI and leadership roles that NGOs can play in implementation and scaling up. Finally Chapter XIII presents a listing of tools and contact information.
This report differs from many others in that it is not a technical update summarizing key findings from recent research for those who are implementing child health programs in the field.Rather, the report attempts to synthesize and reflect back the experience of NGOs to the NGOs themselves, in order to provide a framework for discussion of integrated approaches to child health and nutrition and suggest further actions that might be taken to further develop these approaches.
While NGOs clearly have much to offer in terms of experiences with communityapproaches to child health and nutrition, the sharing of these experiences with other partners has at times been hampered by uncertainty about what exactly is meant by Household and Community IMCI, and by the tremendous diversity of NGO activities in the field. It is hoped that the framework as it is discussed here can be used as a tool to help NGOs organize and present lessons learned based on their child survival and HH/C IMCI programs, both to each other and toother public health agencies.
NGOs have proven experience in reducing mortality and morbidity and in improving child health and nutrition at the community level, although the task facing the public health community is huge: more than 11 million children still die before they reach the age of five. In order to reach these children more effectively, those working in the public health arena need to find answers to key questions such as:
Click here to download this report in PDF format [1.5 MB].
Click here to read about a related report, "Reaching Communities for Child Health and Nutrition: A Proposed Implementation Framework for HH/C IMCI".
This report attempts to clarify current thinking on the Household and Community (HH/C) component of IMCI (Integrated Management of Childhood Illness) herein referred to as HH/C IMCI. Chapter III provides a general introduction to the IMCI approach, including its history and its three components. The remainder of the report focuses on the third component of IMCI, Improving Household and Community Practices. An implementation framework consisting of three programmatic "Elements" is introduced on Chapter IV. The Elements describe the necessary technical content of a HH/C IMCI program, and the multi-sectoral platform which supports the implementation of the three Elements. Chapters V to VIII cover the technical content of each of the three Elements and the platform in more detail. The Elements and platform are illustrated through the experiences of US-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs), known as privatevoluntary organizations (PVOs).
Chapter IX discusses linkages between the framework and other health programs such as Roll Back Malaria and Early Childhood Development. Chapter X discusses in detail the principles underlying the framework that were agreed to at the CORE workshop in January 2001.Chapters XI and XII discuss the role of community mobilization in the implementation of HH/C IMCI and leadership roles that NGOs can play in implementation and scaling up. Finally Chapter XIII presents a listing of tools and contact information.
This report differs from many others in that it is not a technical update summarizing key findings from recent research for those who are implementing child health programs in the field.Rather, the report attempts to synthesize and reflect back the experience of NGOs to the NGOs themselves, in order to provide a framework for discussion of integrated approaches to child health and nutrition and suggest further actions that might be taken to further develop these approaches.
While NGOs clearly have much to offer in terms of experiences with communityapproaches to child health and nutrition, the sharing of these experiences with other partners has at times been hampered by uncertainty about what exactly is meant by Household and Community IMCI, and by the tremendous diversity of NGO activities in the field. It is hoped that the framework as it is discussed here can be used as a tool to help NGOs organize and present lessons learned based on their child survival and HH/C IMCI programs, both to each other and toother public health agencies.
NGOs have proven experience in reducing mortality and morbidity and in improving child health and nutrition at the community level, although the task facing the public health community is huge: more than 11 million children still die before they reach the age of five. In order to reach these children more effectively, those working in the public health arena need to find answers to key questions such as:
- How can improvements to child health services be extended to the household level by district level staff?
- How can the scope of existing child survival programs be expanded to include all of the interventions with a proven impact of child mortality and morbidity?
- How can existing child survival programs be scaled up to the district level and beyond the district level so that millions of children benefit from them?
- How can existing child survival programs be maintained in the face of economic and political uncertainty?
Click here to download this report in PDF format [1.5 MB].
Click here to read about a related report, "Reaching Communities for Child Health and Nutrition: A Proposed Implementation Framework for HH/C IMCI".
Number of Pages
110
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