Sustaining Quality Approaches for Locally Embedded Community Health Services (SQALE) Symposium
Thursday, 08 Sep 2016
“I call on our districts and implementing partners to exert their maximum effort to bring this dream to reality – the dream of having a community health service that is sustainable and responsive to the needs of our many diverse localities. I also call on our development partners to prioritize this service as one of “first call” in supporting the health sector.” Dr. James Nyikal, quoted from MOH (2006). Taking the Kenya Essential Package for Health to the Community: A Strategy for the Delivery of Level One Services. Nairobi: Ministry of Health.
Community systems are the bedrock of health systems. In cities and villages Community Health Workers - such as Community Health Extension Workers and Community Health Volunteers – support colleagues in facilities to deliver essential health services and identify individuals and families at risk of illness. These workers are a vital cadre that are helping us to meet our heath and development targets, yet often their efforts go unnoticed and uncelebrated.
The Government of Kenya has made community health systems a priority and supports its implementation through the provision of policy, standards, and tools that help guide the work and orientate Community Health Workers and their supervisors. Various other organisations are running initiatives to strengthen the implementation of community health programmes or to monitor and evaluate their successes and challenges. We believe that there is a lot that we can learn from each other and that we can work together to raise the profile the work of communities in promoting better health.
This symposium is hosted by the SQALE community health service project, a new initiative that seeks to enhance maternal and child health by improving quality of services at the community level and the access of services at facility level. The Project works to strengthen leadership and coordination at national, county and community levels by embedding a culture of quality improvement through capacity-building and community engagement.
The symposium brings together a wide range of stakeholders – from communities, the health service, non-governmental organisations, research institutes and universities, government, and funders – to share learning on quality improvement. It aims to strengthen our knowledge of how Quality Improvement methods can be applied at the community level.
This meeting will take place 08.00 - 13.00, 20 September 2016 at the Kenya School of Monetary Studies. To attend contact Daniel Kavoo (kavdan4020@gmail.com). We hope that you will be able to join us and share your knowledge.