In the past several years, the family planning and reproductive health sector has focused on improving quality--providing more efficient, client-centered services to clients. Toward this end, AVSC has become a leader in the development and introduction of innovative quality-improvement tools for reproductive health programs worldwide. Two of AVSC's quality-improvement approaches are now in the spotlight as subjects of an AVSC Working Paper and an issue of the Population Council's Quality/Calidad/Qualité series.

New Training Approach

AVSC Working Paper No. 11, "Whole-Site Training: A New Approach to the Organization of Training," offers a way to remedy some of the problems associated with traditional training approaches.

Authors Janet Bradley, Pamela Fenney Lynam, Joseph C. Dwyer, and Grace E. Wambwa outline the key components of whole-site training (WST), which shifts the focus of clinical training from individual staff members trained at central locations to teams of staff trained at the service-delivery site where they work. WST is intended to help sites improve the supervision and sustainability of their training efforts and to help better integrate newly learned techniques and skills into existing services. After discussing WST's advantages and challenges, the authors include specific examples of its use.

AVSC Working Paper No. 11 is available online. Printed copies may also be ordered from AVSC International, 440 Ninth Avenue, New York, NY 10001; telephone: 212-561-8003; fax: 212-561-8067; e-mail: info@engenderhealth.org.

Helping Staff Help Themselves

In "Using COPE to Improve Quality of Care: The Experience of the Family Planning Association of Kenya," author Janet Bradley tracks the successful implementation in Kenya of COPE, a self-assessment process that has been used in 35 countries around the world.

COPE--which stands for client-oriented, provider-efficient services--was designed to help all levels of staff at a health care facility assess their needs and find solutions to their problems in order to improve the quality of services provided at the facility. The approach focuses on self-assessment, client interviews, client-flow analysis, and developing an action plan.

"The Kenyan example demonstrates that achieving quality of care and building a culture of self-evaluation and true staff involvement is indeed affordable, attainable, and sustainable," says Bradley.

The publication is the newest title in the Population Council's Quality/Calidad/Qualité series. For copies, contact the Population Council, One Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, New York, NY 10017; telephone: 212-339-0500; fax: 212-755-6052; e-mail: pubinfo@popcouncil.org.