Included in this section of the Toolkit are a series of audio and video interviews with family planning experts discussing the importance of supportive government policies to the success of family planning programs. Specifically, interviewees talk about establishing partnerships with government; understanding religious factors associated with family planning; reasons why government should support family planning; and challenges to government involvement in family planning programs.

For example, Bright Ekweremadu, Managing Director of Society for Family Health in Nigeria, emphasizes the critical role of a supportive government in helping family planning providers accomplish their work by creating an enabling environment. Dr. Jeff Spieler, Senior Science Advisor at USAID, discusses in detail why political leaders should support family planning. He argues that "family planning is the solution to many problems..." because it enables couples to have the number of children they want and to space pregnancies. These abilities reduce child mortality, reduce maternal morbidity and mortality, and increase opportunities for women, thereby increasing economic growth. Dr. Punima Mane, Deputy Executive Director of UNFPA, talks about the importance of data in dvocacy, planning and policy around family planning programs and services.

This series of video interviews with family planning experts focuses on the importance of monitoring and evaluation and research in family planning programming. Dr. Jane Bertrand, Director of Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, talks about monitoring and evaluation as an important component to successful family planning programs and describes some of her own experiences in monitoring and evaluating family planning programs. Dr. Sian Curtis, Director of USAID’s MEASURE Evaluation Program, talks about the purpose and importance of monitoring and evaluation and discusses some of the barriers that are faced in program  implementation, such as resources, time and staffing, and the importance of planning ahead when implementing a monitoring and evaluation system.

Additionally, Dr. Joe Speidel of the Bixby Center for Global and Reproductive Health at UCSF talks about his entry into the field of family planning and how relatively quick of an effect family planning has in reducing fertility and population growth once family planning is invested in (examples including the U.S. and many developing countries). Dr. John Townsend, Vice President and Director of the Population Council's Reproductive Health Program, talks about the importance of listening to clients and shaping programs around their needs.

This series of audio and video interviews with family planning experts highlights issues related to leadership and management of family planning programs. The interviewees address the importance of strong and influential leadership; leadership development; and community involvement. For example, Margaret Neuse, Emeritus Director of USAID’s Office of Population and Reproductive Health, talks about the importance of training local staff for leadership roles. Bright Ekweremadu, Managing Director of Society for Family Health, and Mike Egboh, a Country Representative for Pathfinder International, both of Nigeria, talk about the importance of community involvement, including community acceptance and input, recognizing the community and religious leaders and cooperating with the community leaders.

This series of audio and video interviews with family planning experts examines the role of communication and behavior change communication in family planning. Interview discussion of behavior change communication in general and the media's role in behavior change are included. Experts talk about the importance of communication programs in successful family planning programs and the importance of behavior change theories in family planning decision-making. Additionally, specific program experiences in communication strategies and campaigns are described.

Ruwaida Salem, Senior Technical Writer at Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, provides a history of family planning communication, reviews communication strategies and methods, and talks about the importance of understanding behavior change theories and the local context for family planning programs to best assist and support family planning decision-making. Ed Scholl, Director of Public Health Programs at FHI, talks about the media’s role in behavior change and points to ways the media can help and hinder family planning.

This series of audio and video interviews with family planning experts covers issues related to contraceptive security. Dr. Robert Hatcher of Emory University talks about contraceptive method mix and having a broad range of services while Dr. Alan Bornbusch of USAID talks about supply chains and "choke points". Dr. Bornbusch gives examples of national contraceptive success stories in Bangladesh and Zimbabwe as well.

Several resources are available to help programs understand the local context and ensure contraceptive security. This section of the Toolkit includes several tools, including tools that can help decision-makers measure a country’s level of contraceptive security and tools that help program managers plan optimal procurement and delivery schedules for health commodities as well as monitor their orders throughout the supply chain.

Have a suggested resource or comment about this section? Please visit our feedback form [12].

This series of audio and video interviews with family planning experts focuses on training family planning staff. Dr. Irina Yacobson, Assistant Medical Director for FHI, talks about training and motivating staff, and the importance of listening to client's needs and informed choice. Dr. Ricky Lu, Director of Reproductive Health and Family Planning at JHPIEGO, talks about the importance of comprehensive training and the different ways program managers can provide training to family planning service providers.

In this section of the Toolkit's training tab are a selection of general training resources, including tools, guides and manuals essential to training health care providers in reproductive health and family planning.

Have a suggested resource or comment about this section? Please visit our discussion board [12].

This series of audio and video interviews with family planning experts focuses on providing client-centered care. Bright Ekweremadu, Managing Director of Society for Family Health in Nigeria, and Dr. Townsend, Vice President and Director of the Population Council's Reproductive Health Program discuss the importance of listening to clients and shaping programs around their needs.  Many of the interviews focus on family planning for adolescents.  Dr. Robert Blum, Professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, explains the importance of adolescent reproductive health care and talks about the challenges of peer education programs to prevent adolescent pregnancy. Dr. Winifride Mwebesa, Advisor at Save the Children, discusses family planning services for young girls and emphasizes the importance of sensitivity and appropriateness of family planning services tailored for young girls.

Understanding the needs, attitudes and cultures of family planning clients will enable family planning providers to offer better quality services. This section of the Toolkit includes several resources on providing quality of care, client satisfaction, and addressing the needs of continuing family planning clients.

Have a suggested resource or comment about this section? Please visit our feedback form [12].

Good client-provider interaction (CPI) is key to successful family planning use, services and programs. Here you will find resources how clients, providers and programs can support and improve CPI as well as best practices in CPI.

Have a suggested resource or comment about this section? Please visit our feedback form [12].

Thorough and quality screening and counseling practices enable family planning clients to make well-informed decisions based on their reproductive goals, individual circumstances, and lifestyles. This section of the Toolkit includes resources on screening and counseling family planning clients. You also will find job aids and tools that take a client-centered approach to family planning service delivery. These resources can help providers screen and counsel clients as well as educate clients about family planning methods and involve them in the decision-making process.

Additional screening and counseling resources for family planning methods are included in the following contraceptive method toolkits: Condom Use [14], Implants, [15]Injectables,  [16]IUD,  [17]Lactational Amenorrhea Method (LAM),  [18]Oral Contraceptives [19], and Standard Days Method. [20]

This series of audio and video interviews with family planning experts explores ways to promote easy access to family planning services. Dr. John Stanback and Ed Scholl of FHI and Dr. Winifride Mwebesa of Save the Children discuss the importance of a variety of service delivery points to increase access to family planning services.  Margaret Neuse, Emeritus Director of USAID’s Office of Population and Reproductive Health, talks about the importance of private sector collaboration as a means to providing greater access to services and commodities.

Access to family planning services can be constrained for many reasons. This section of the toolkit includes resources addressing the many types of barriers one may face in trying to obtain family planning services, including geographic or physical barriers, financial barriers, medical or administrative barriers, social or cultural barriers, and barriers in outreach to specific populations (for example, youth).

Family planning services can be offered through a variety of delivery systems, including, clinics (public, NGO, or private), community-based distribution, private providers’ offices, retail outlets, and mobile or temporary facilities. Many programs use a mix of service delivery points to make methods available to all potential users. Here you will find resources on Community-Based Family Planning; Community-Based Access to Injectables; and Social Marketing.

K4Health Toolkits are also available specifically on Community-Based Family Planning [152] and Community-Based Access to Injectable Contraceptives [153].

These audio interviews with Dr. Robert Hatcher, Professor at Emory University School of Medicine, and Dr. John Stanback, Deputy Director of the PROGRESS project at FHI, explore the provision of family planning services for the poor.

This series of audio and video interviews with family planning experts speaks to the importance of integrating family planning with other reproductive and child health services. Interviewees highlight both the benefits and challenges to integrating services, as well as the importance of offering organized and comprehensive family planning and reproductive health services due to the difficulties patients encounter when seeking out services.

For example, Dr. Heidi Reynolds, a Senior Research Associate for FHI, talks about the integration of family planning services with HIV services. Dr. Duff Gillespie of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health also addresses integration wtih HIV/AIDS services and discusses the difficulties of achieving appropriate HIV/AIDS integrated service programs, such as voluntary testing with family planning, due to lack of evidence and documentation. Dr. Habib Sadauki, Senior Reproductive Health and Family Planning Advisor at Pathfinder International, provides examples of opportune times to integrate health and education services and the multiple benefits that come with program integration within the community setting.

Supportive policies help ensure that family planning has a prominent place on the national agenda, that adequate financial resources are allocated, and that family planning services are affordable and accessible. In this section of the Toolkit you'll find resources that review the history and evolution of family planning policies as well as country specific examples describing how family planning policies have influenced programs, access and service delivery.

Successful family planning programs use research to help tailor programs to their context and use monitoring and evaluation to inform and strengthen program planning and management. This section of the Toolkit includes resources describing country and program experiences in using research to understand family planning need and effective service delivery strategies, as well as resources describing how programs have implemented best practices and evidence-based practices into family planning programs.

Strong leadership coupled with good management helps programs improve and expand services, scale up best practices, and navigate change. Here you will find resources on how family planning program managers and service delivery providers have benefited from learning and using good leadership and management skills.

Communication grounded in behavior theory and sensitive to local norms motivates clients to seek services and helps them make good family planning choices. The resources included in this section of the Toolkit provide examples on how communication efforts, using various strategies, have influenced knowledge and attitudes on family planning as well as the reach of programs and services.

A strong logistics system and a long-term plan for contraceptive security ensure that a variety of methods, and the supplies and equipment to provide them, are always available. This section of the Toolkit includes briefs and reports on country and program experiences in achieving or making progress towards contraceptive security by ensuring contraceptive options and availability.

Planning and providing services with the clients in mind help to make sure their needs are met and their preferences are honored. The resources included in this section describe program experiences in implementing client-centered care.

Offering family planning services through a variety of delivery points helps clients obtain services easily and makes methods available to more potential users. Here you will find resources on how community-based distribution and other strategies have been used to increase provision of contraceptives. For more country experiences on community-based family planning you can go to the Country Experiences [179] section of the Community-Based Family Planning Toolkit. [152]

Services that are not affordable can pose a major barrier to women and couples seeking out family planning. This section of the toolkit includes resources on how programs have addressed financial barriers to accessing family planning services. Specifically, resources on tapping into the private sector and use vouchers are included here.

Programs can address a wider range of health needs by integrating services where appropriate and offering referrals where it is not. In this section of the Toolkit many resources are included on integrating family planning services. Resources on specific program experiences are found here as well as reports on the evidence and policies supporting integration of services.