[ Skip Navigation ] EngenderHealth logo USAID logo Fistula Care logo
Photograph of Fistula Patients
 

Curricula and Training Modules

Communities for Improving Maternal Health: A Guide to Training Village Committees in Maternal and Child Health in Guinea
This five-day training guide was developed in Guinea to give village safe motherhood committees the knowledge, ability, and tools necessary to spread awareness within their community of the risks of pregnancy and childbirth, including obstetric fistula, in addition to promoting maternal health through access to care before, during, and after childbirth. In particular, the training focuses on three problems linked to poor maternal health: giving birth at home without access to skilled care in an emergency; lack of antenatal care and preparation for childbirth; and poor engagement of men during pregnancy and childbirth.
Files: French (PDF, 1.8MB)

Counseling for Effective Use of Family Planning
This curriculum, developed through the ACQUIRE Project, builds on EngenderHealth's previous work in counseling. At the same time, it responds to the identified gap in existing materials and fills the needs expressed by those in the field. The intended audiences for this curriculum are health care providers, their supervisors, and the managers of the programs in which they work. The counseling skills addressed here are expected to be relevant to the provision of both preventive and curative health services through the workshop participants' national health systems. Finally, the curriculum's participatory approach to defining terms and to generating profiles of potential clients is designed to assist trainees in addressing the realities and exploring the reproductive health priorities of their communities in a culturally appropriate manner.
File: English (PDF, 6.8MB)

Counseling the Obstetric Fistula Client: A Training Curriculum
Counseling is an integral part of comprehensive fistula care services. The curriculum guides nurses, midwives, and physicians to help their clients make informed and voluntary decisions about their care. The curriculum addresses counseling needs related to fistula prevention, treatment, and social reintegration. Service providers can also find information about how to engage with the client’s family and how to link the client to supportive organizations in the community.
Files: English (PDF, 2.5MB) and French (PDF, 2.8MB)

Counseling the Traumatic Fistula Client: A Supplement to the Obstetric Fistula Counseling Curriculum
Clients seeking care for traumatic fistula—fistula caused by sexual assault—need access to counseling that addresses the complex effects of their condition. This supplement complements the counseling curriculum to address the physical, social, and psychological impacts specific to traumatic fistula. The supplement also provides information on how health care providers working with traumatic fistula clients can seek support for themselves.
Files: English (PDF, 3.2MB) and French (PDF, 3.2MB)

Data for Decision Making in Fistula Care: A Supplemental Module for Facilitative Supervision
In keeping with its commitment to quality improvement, Fistula Care promotes the use of data for decision making. This series of training modules provides clinical supervisors, service providers, and national-level stakeholders with skills to review and interpret data in order to strengthen health systems and services. The document includes guides for discussion and interactive activities, as well as handouts and other tools to teach lessons about data gathering, analysis, and application. The modules supplement EngenderHealth’s facilitative supervision tools, which emphasize team problem solving and communication.
Files: English (PDF, 2.8MB) and French (PDF, 2.6MB)

Training Session for Health Workers on Prevention and Recognition from Ethiopia
Fistula Care's implementing partner in Ethiopia, IntraHealth International, has developed materials to train health care workers on obstetric fistula prevention, identification, and pre-repair care. The course contains a participant handbook, a facilitator manual, 10 modules, a variety of visual aids, and supplementary handouts. (All items are in English.)

Global Competency-Based Fistula Surgery Training Manual
This training manual, developed by the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO), in collaboration with the International Society of Obstetric Fistula Surgeons, UNFPA, EngenderHealth, and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, addresses the need for surgeons to develop the necessary skills for fistula repair. The purpose of this manual is to enable dedicated physicians to acquire the knowledge, skills, and professionalism they need to prevent obstetric fistula and provide proper surgical, medical, and psychosocial care to women who have fistula.
Files: English (PDF, 1.9MB) and French (PDF, 4.2MB)

Promoting Maternal Health and Preventing Obstetric Fistula: A Training Curriculum for Village Health Teams in Uganda
This training manual is designed to complement and reinforce existing training materials for village health teams (VHTs) in Uganda. It builds upon the content of the Uganda Ministry of Health’s existing training materials for VHTs and provides additional content and tools to support VHTs in their efforts to monitor and promote maternal health in their communities. The four-day training workshop equips members of VHTs with the knowledge, skills, and tools they need to promote healthy practices before, during, and after childbirth and to monitor maternal health care–seeking and pregnancy outcomes in their communities.
Files: English (PDF, 1.7MB)

The Prevention and Management of Obstetric Fistula: A Curriculum for Nurses and Midwives
Nursing and midwifery are both integral to comprehensive obstetric fistula care services. The goal of this curriculum is to train nurses and midwives so that they have the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that will enable them to prevent obstetric fistula and care for clients who are living with obstetric fistula. This comprehensive curriculum, developed by the East, Central, and Southern Africa Health Community, with support from USAID and Fistula Care, addresses several critical areas: preventive care; surgical treatment and postoperative recovery; information; education; family and community involvement; counseling; and data collection and use. It also presents learning activities and competency-based skills checklists that help nurses and midwives develop real-world skills for the clinical environment.
Files: English (PDF, 4.1MB) and French (PDF, 5.7MB)

Training Manual for Community Liaisons from Niger
This training manual, developed in Niger, is designed to enhance the knowledge of community liaisons on maternal and newborn health, including: the status of maternal and newborn health globally and in Niger; health services to promote maternal and newborn health; skilled birth attendance and danger signs; family planning; and obstetric fistula. The training manual also addresses communication techniques to promote maternal and newborn health. The participant handbook was designed to facilitate awareness-spreading activities of community leaders in maternal and neo-natal health as well as obstetric fistula. (All items are in French.)

© 2013 EngenderHealth.

This resource was made possible by the generous support of the American people through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), under the terms of the cooperative agreement GHS-A-00-07-00021-00. The information provided on this resource is not official U.S. Government information and does not represent the views or positions of the USAID or the U.S. Government.