Teaching family planning management and evaluation skills

In the last several years the need for training schemes in family planning programme administration has become increasingly apparent with the rapid growth of family planning services throughout the world. This paper reports on the development and use of a series of 16 practical classroom training exercises designed for teaching planning, management and evaluation skills. Each exercise can be introduced, worked and discussed in a morning or an afternoon. It is available in an individual booklet, which contains worksheets, blank tables and step-by-step instructions for working the exercise, along with a discussion of the skills being taught. Topics covered include demographic rates and concepts, the Dryfoos-Polgar-Varkey formula, risk factor analysis, target-setting, case load forecasting, service statistics, contraceptive supplies, manpower planning, couple-year of protection, cost-effectiveness, contraceptive use-effectiveness, life table techniques, numerator analysis, fertility pattern method, sampling methods and questionnaire design. These curriculum materials concentrate on imparting through the medium of actual experience a series of specific management techniques of a quantitative nature that will enhance the ability of the trainees to plan, administer and evaluate any family planning programme anywhere in the world. The exercises in this series have been tested in the family planning training programmes at Columbia University and at Downstate Medical Center in New York. They have also been used in WHO workshops in Thailand and Tanzania and in training programmes in France, Kenya and Nicaragua.