Training in Africa: Best Practices, Lessons Learned and Future Directions, 05/03

Best Practices, Lessons Learned and Future Directions 7 9 May 2003, Nairobi, Kenya

The Training in Africa: Best Practices, Lessons Learned and Future Directions conference information is now available online. On the website you can-: * Read about the conference * Register for the conference and sign up for workshops * Find information about hotel registration * Link to the hotel's website * See the conference agenda * Print out the conference brochure

Please register for the conference and hotel rooms early as there is interest in this conference and space is limited to 200. Also, the hotel is holding 100 rooms for now, so register early. You can go directly to the conference page or access the conference section from our home page as shown below:

Conference Main Page: http://www.jhpiego.org/bpconf/africa/index.htm

JHPIEGO Home Page: http://www.jhpiego.org

Please forward this information to others who may be interested in attending this important conference.

Here is some additional information about the conference:

The focus of the conference will be to examine best training practices used in international healthcare settings, with particular emphasis on family planning and reproductive health in Africa. In addition, training practices that have been employed successfully in sectors other than healthcare will be examined and discussed for their applicability to reproductive health programs. The conference is being organized by the JHPIEGO Corporation's Training in Reproductive Health project in collaboration with the Office of Population and Reproductive Health of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and a number of USAID Cooperating Agencies.

Training is one of the primary interventions for improving the performance of healthcare workers in Africa. What do we know about effective training? We know that training occurs as part of most efforts to strengthen healthcare systems and improve the quality of services. We know that training comes in many sizes and shapes, including classroom-based learning, distance learning, self-directed learning, technology-assisted learning and on-the-job training. We know that training is applied across a broad range of content areas including management, quality assurance, logistics, community education, and clinical. So how do we know effective training when we see it? What practices, processes and approaches work best for family planning and reproductive health in international settings?

The goal of this conference is to examine training practices identified as best based on objective data, to share lessons learned from implementing training in a variety of settings, and to look at the horizon to see what the future holds for training in Africa.

During the 3-day conference we will have a number of skill-building workshops, general session speakers and approximately 40 concurrent session speakers for an audience of about 150-200. Concurrent sessions will be designed for 25-30 conference attendees each and will be 90 minutes in length. The skill-building workshops will be held on the first day of the conference, will be 3-hours in length and will focus on key training skills.

This conference is designed for individuals who have responsibilities for the programming, design, delivery and evaluation of training interventions to improve worker performance, with a focus on family planning and reproductive health in Africa. Conference attendees may include trainers, instructional designers, materials developers, facilitators, program managers and evaluators.

Note that English is the official language of the conference and that translation services will not be available.

Direct questions about the conference to:

Rick Sullivan Director of Learning and Performance Support JHPIEGO Corporation 1615 Thames Street Baltimore, MD 21231-3492, USA Tel: +1-410-537-1931 Fax: +1-410-537-1476 mailto:rsullivan@jhpiego.net

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