Training Curricula and Materials

Training is an essential, ongoing component of the health care system and is vital for sustaining and expanding quality services. It is both an activity for transferring knowledge and skills and affecting attitudes, and an ongoing subsystem. The ACQUIRE Project identified training as a critical subsystem on the supply side of its holistic program model, and it supported training in field programs as one of the fundamental interventions to increase the availability and quality of reproductive health (RH) and family planning (FP) services. Yet ACQUIRE recognized that while training is often needed, it is not sufficient to ensure competent and motivated service providers. Thus, while striving to strengthen training systems and interventions, ACQUIRE also worked to improve the other service subsystems that interact with and support training, such as supervision, management, referral, and logistics.

ACQUIRE exerted global leadership in the training arena by generating a broad range of evidence-based, state-of-the-art models, curricula, and tools for key RH/FP program interventions. These include a holistic Training Model (a “drill-down” from the overall ACQUIRE Program Model) that guided ACQUIRE’s own thinking about and programming for training, as well as that of our partners. A comprehensive resource, Programming for Training: A Resource Package for Trainers, Program Managers, and Supervisors, provides information, methods, tools, and best practices for designing, developing, planning, implementing, and evaluating training and for strengthening training systems. This publication, which draws on the latest thinking and experience of ACQUIRE, EngenderHealth, and sister organizations, is intended for use by both RH/FP service program managers and RH/FP trainers. Additionally, a large number of state-of-the-art, evidence-based curricula (presented in this section of the archive) cover such key RH/FP service program areas as: counseling for FP; supervision; postpartum provision of the intrauterine device; vasectomy provision; counseling for obstetric fistula; integration of FP with HIV prevention, care, and treatment services; male RH; and services for young married couples.