Languages

Community-Based Family Planning

A Family Welfare Assistant shares family planning information with villagers in the Trishad District of Bangladesh.

Community-based family planning (CBFP) brings family planning (FP) information and services to women and men in the communities where they live, rather than requiring them to travel to health facilities. Ideally, CBFP should be considered as part of the broader health system to ensure that the program provides a sustainable solution for meeting the FP-related health care needs of the population.

This course orients the learner to the essential elements for designing and implementing successful, sustainable CBFP programs. It describes three popular approaches to CBFP—provision by community health workers (CHWs), mobile outreach services, and drug shops—and provides an opportunity for users to practice what they learned using a case study.  

Objective

By the end of the course, the learner will be able to do the following:

  • Describe the basic features and programmatic objectives of community-based family planning (CBFP)
  • Describe the essential elements required for a sustainable CBFP program
  • Describe the features of three CBFP approaches: provision by community health workers (CHWs), mobile outreach services, and drug shops
  • Consider the circumstances/conditions presented in a case study and decide which CBFP approach(es) would be most appropriate

Credits

The authors of the revised Community-Based Family Planning course would like to acknowledge the original course authors, Victoria Graham (USAID), Catherine Toth (Consultant), and Mia Foreman (ICF Macro), who developed the first edition of the course in November 2009. We would also like to thank Kirsten Krueger, Morrisa Malkin, John Stanback, and Dawn Chin-Quee at FHI 360; Tom Ellum at Marie Stopes International; and Victoria Graham and Elaine Menotti at USAID, who served as reviewers and subject matter experts for this update.