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Peter Mohammed Njuguna, Lucy Njue, Esther Kabati, Emma Waweru,
Judith Maua, Caroline Macharia, and Wilson Liambila.
"Application of Balanced Counseling Strategy Plus in family
planning consultations: Experience from pilot sites in Kenya."
ABSTRACT
Introduction
The Balanced Counseling Strategy (BCS) is a practical,
interactive, and client-friendly counseling approach that uses job
aids to facilitate family planning consultations. The job aids in
the BCS toolkit are the algorithm, counseling cards, and brochures.
The BCS is designed to provide the information and the tools needed
to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of integrated CT/FP
consultations. The use of BCS simplifies decisionmaking and
responds to the client’s needs and reproductive intentions. Sharing
implementation experience on how the BCS Plus was introduced and
applied especially with regard to risk assessment for STIs/HIV/AIDS
within FP consultations provides valuable information to program
managers and providers who intend to apply similar tools in their
settings.
Materials and methods
Providers in the pilot facilities were trained on how to use the
BCS, particularly the algorithm, a set of method cards, and
corresponding brochures on each of the FP methods. Pilot health
facilities were supplied with the necessary job aids in both
districts.
Results and discussion
Reports of the facilitative supervision teams in both pilot
districts show that the BCS tools are being used in all the pilot
facilities. Results of the discussions between health providers and
district teams showed that they do appreciate the fact that BCS is a
useful tool not only in improving the quality of care but also its
ability to integrate in one session FP/STIs/HIV/AIDS messages.
Conclusion and policy implication
Implementation experience shows that the use of BCS improves the
quality of FP consultations and does facilitate the integration of
FP/STIs/RTIs and HIV/AIDS information.
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