Kenya Preservice Training for Long-Acting and Permanent Methods of Contraception: Assessment Report

Kenya’s Division of Reproductive Health (DRH) recognizes that increasing the contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) and ensuring a full range of contraceptive choices is an enormous challenge. In 2008, the Government of Kenya articulated a national strategy to increase access to and use of longacting and permanent methods of contraception (LA/PMs) (MOPHS, 2008). A number of international partners are helping to implement that strategy, including by providing in-service training. Missing from these efforts, however, is a targeted, systematic, comprehensive attempt to better prepare future family planning (FP) providers to offer LA/PM services as part of a full method mix. The DRH’s training plan identifies strengthening of preservice training as one of its key objectives. As an initial step, the DRH requested support from the RESPOND Project (1) to gather in-depth information about the state of preservice LA/PM training in Kenya and (2) to make recommendations for improving that training. This report presents the findings of that assessment and recommendations for next steps.