From 27-31 August 2001, an Advanced Training Skills and Change Leadership Workshop was conducted in Nairobi, Kenya. This workshop was the third and final event in developing regional expert maternal and neonatal health (MNH) trainers for Africa. Beginning in October 2000, a group of 17 obstetrician/gynecologists and midwives have participated in a series of activities to update their knowledge, standardize their clinical skills and strengthen their training skills. These
individuals represent Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. They have received individual followup for ongoing clinical skills development and will also have a similar opportunity to practice their training skills with support from a master trainer.
Advanced Training Skills
During the advanced training skills portion of the workshop, participants strengthened their group process, problem-solving and clinical decision-making skills, and learned how to teach decision-making skills to others. In addition, participants learned how to develop new trainers and provide them with the special coaching they need.
Change Leadership
The change leadership portion of the workshop focused on participants' roles as change agents within their institutions, countries and even on a regional level. Since the first activity last October, participants have made commitments to effect change in their work sites. Using their experiences to date, participants identified facilitating factors as well as barriers to change and then developed effective strategies for managing change. Utilizing these strategies, they then developed action plans to implement ongoing change in their sites and beyond. The curriculum for change leadership was developed by the Policy Division of the MNH Program, in collaboration with the Behavior Change Interventions Division. It was facilitated by a representative of PATH/Kenya, one of the MNH partner agencies.
For more information about this training activity, contact Lois
Schaefer.
