Whole-Site Orientation to Family Planning
What Is It?
Eligible client receives family planning counseling in Bareilly.
All facility staff receive "orientation" training to gain a basic understanding of family planning/AYSRH and its benefits. When a client encounters any staff member at the facility, that staff member is then able to either counsel and provide family planning/AYSRH services to the client or direct the client to someone else who can.
Orientation sessions are "low-dose, high frequency" – that is, the sessions are shorter and spread out over many days to avoid taking staff away from their posts for long periods of time and avoid disruption to services. The sessions also take place at the facility itself.
What Are the Benefits?
- Ensures that there are no missed opportunities to promote and provide family planning/AYSRH information and services
- All staff at the facility have basic knowledge of family planning/AYSRH; minimizes myths and misconceptions that staff themselves may have
- Addresses facility-related barriers to accessing family planning/AYSRH services; for example, security guard teasing an unmarried woman for seeking family planning services or client getting lost trying to find the family planning clinic
- Serves as platform to support provider-initiated family planning/AYSRH services
Who Can Participate in the Orientation Sessions?
- Doctors, midwives, nurses, clinical officers, nurses aides, and any other clinical staff
- Receptionists, security guards, housekeeping staff, lab technicians, and other non-clinical staff
- Providers and staff from neighboring private clinics
- Pharmacists and pharmacy staff from surrounding areas
- Anyone else who might interact regularly with a potential family planning/AYSRH client
Whole-site orientation to family planning and AYSRH is a stand-alone approach in the East Africa and Francophone West Africa toolkits, while in India and Nigeria toolkits it is one of a number of capacity strengthening activities that can be found in their strengthening provider capacity and quality improvement approaches, respectively. In all geographies, WSO is implemented in one session or several recurring sessions, depending on the knowledge gaps identified at a particular facility and the topics to be covered.
How to Implement
Identify and develop a list of topics to be covered within a specific time frame
Facility trainers along with facility in-charges should plan a schedule of topics that can be completed within a two-month period.*
Topics can be broad or specific, depending on what facility staff want to learn about and/or any identified knowledge gaps. In addition to covering family planning in general, the East Africa orientations focus on interpersonal communication skills, commodity management, and correcting family planning myths and misconceptions, especially about long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs), among staff. Staff were oriented to refer appropriate clients who were visiting the facility for other reasons to the family planning room for counseling and services.
Topics to be covered in WSO sessions include the following:
| Family planning overview | Barrier methods | Natural methods |
| Family planning counseling | Combined oral contraceptives | Lactational amenorrhea method (LAM) |
| Family planning benefits | Progestin only pills | Record keeping and commodity management |
| Family planning policies | Injectables | Myths and misconceptions |
| Adolescent and youth-friendly services | Implants | Infection prevention |
| Medical eligibility criteria | IUCD | IEC materials – Family planning promotion in the community |
| Communication with young people | Permanent methods | Provider-initiated family planning |
* The East Africa Hub recommends that the entire training take no longer than two months to cover all the topics.
Develop content for each session
Facility trainers and in-charges should identify the specific information needed for each topic. For example, if the topic is "Correcting Myths and Misconceptions," the content should include common local myths and the medical facts that debunk them. Use TCI-U tools and job aids (found in the "Tools" section below) to provide standardized, evidence-based information.
Determine who will conduct the training
The orientation does not always require an outside expert. Identify "Family Planning Champions" or senior clinical staff within the facility who can lead these short sessions. In some cases, staff from neighboring facilities or district-level supervisors can be brought in to facilitate more technical clinical topics.
Organize weekly sessions to learn about a single topic
o minimize service disruption, sessions should be "low-dose, high-frequency." This means holding 15–30 minute briefings once or twice a week (e.g., during morning handovers or tea breaks) rather than a full-day workshop. Continue this cycle until all staff have rotated through all identified topics.
What Is the Evidence?
East Africa
Prior to implementing WSO at Mukono Health Centre IV, many clients left the health center without family planning information or methods because health workers were not confident to talk about family planning or were too tired and overwhelmed to bring it up since it was not part of their normal routine. During WSO sessions, all facility staff were taught about different family planning methods, allowed to touch samples of them and provided with informational handouts for further reading. Concurrently, health center staff put up signage promoting the family planning services provided there. Now, when a client enters the health facility, everyone – from the guards to the cleaners to the health workers – can talk about and refer clients to family planning services. As a result, they have seen more family planning clients.
The Nursing Officer at the facility shared:
"If you clear the misconceptions, give facts about the methods and assure (clients) about your availability to help in case of any concerns, you will get many family planning method acceptors.”
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