Last week IntraHealth International welcomed Impact Global Health Alliance Global and Intern Lisa Briggs to present her work at a brown bag lunch session.
Lisa has followed up and expanded on research conducted by previous Impact Global Health Alliance Interns on integrating storytelling into the Care Group model as an effective method of increasing knowledge and practice of healthy behaviors such as breastfeeding and handwashing.
A Care Group is made of 10-15 volunteer community-based health educators who meet regularly with project staff for training and supervision. The training prepares the volunteers to go out at least monthly to do health promotion with a small cohort of mothers of young children. Each volunteer is responsible for visiting 10-15 of her neighbors, sharing what she has learned and facilitating change at the household level.
Impact Global Health Alliance Global and 20 other development organizations in more than 20 countries have adopted the Care Group Model. Care Groups create a multiplying effect to equitably reach every beneficiary in ways that traditional health care service providers cannot. They also provide the structure for a community health information system that reports on new pregnancies, births, and deaths detected during home visits.
The research conducted by our interns is important because storytelling is traditionally used in our communities as a tool to educate and empower young people to make decisions. Because it is culturally appropriate, we think this approach will have good results and be an effective approach in the future. Supervisor Bakary Sidibe and visiting Liberia Country Director Woseh Gobeh also participated in the presentation.
For more resources and information, visit the Care Group Info blog.
Get a peek of Care Group trainings in Liberia in our photo album.
