Society For Family Health Collaborates To Enhance Innovation In Self-Care

The Society for Family Health SFH in collaboration with Population Service International PSI is implementing the “Delivering Innovation in Self Care” known as the DISC project in some states of the nation including Lagos.

According to the Social and Behavioral Change Communication Officer in Lagos State, Samson Okoliko, the Delivering Innovation in Self Care project started in Lagos in 2021 with 5 Proprietary and Patent Medicine Vendors (P PMVs) and 74 Public Health Facilities which includes Primary Health Centers and Secondary Health Facilities across 12 Local Government Areas with the support of Lagos State Government.

The project supports women to assume greater control over their sexual and reproductive health by using contraceptive self-care methods like self-inject (Depot Medroxyprogesterone Acetate- Subcutaneous DMPA-SC) which can help in delaying or preventing pregnancy if a woman so desires.

The Social and Behavioral Change Communication Officer Omotola Omotoso said that since the DISC project was initiated various activities have been executed in Lagos State to sensitize and train the public especially Women of Reproductive Age (WRA) of the need to embrace a self-inject method of contraceptives.

Some of these programs include- Moment of Truth (MOT) training. The MOT seeks to improve the provider’s empathy skills which addresses the gaps demonstrated by the providers. The MOT initiative has made it possible to train more than a hundred family planning providers.

The DISC project has also utilised various strategies such as Below the Line (BLT) and Above the Line (ATL) to educate women of reproductive age in Lagos of the need to embrace self-care to help them take care of their sexual and reproductive health needs. The Below the Line strategies utilised by the DISC team includes the clinic activation strategy, the community outreach and interpersonal communication agents, where agents are deployed to talk to WRA about the self-inject method of contraception. Also, the ATL approach drives a campaign that leverages digital media to drive awareness about the self-inject contraceptive, Content containing self-care messaging is posted and promoted via selected social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram alongside Google advertising.

The project’s digital assets such as chat bot which can be accessed on Facebook, via the campaign’s website, and WhatsApp through users sending the trigger word “Hi” to +2347068012106 and can access messages on the self-inject contraceptive and other contraceptive method, users can also locate a facility in the projects implementing states. Digital assets also include what is called the cyber-IPC which allows communication directly with an agent via WhatsApp on +234 8130411964..

The campaign also employs Interactive Voice Response and Radio jingles to reach women. All these channels support a woman through her user journey and drive awareness about the self-inject contraceptive as it concerns family planning services.

The DISC project has worked closely with the Lagos State Primary Healthcare Board in providing technical support and building the providers’ skills to render high-quality self-care services to their clients. The support also included training the Family Planning Provider, Health Education Officer and Monitoring and Evaluation officers of the 20 LGAs in Lagos on the appropriate documentation of family planning services on the national health management information system registers, monthly summary and family planning register. The most important of the technical support is training women on how to self-inject DMPA-SC. The overall primary objective of the project is to scale up quality self-care options with DMPA-SC which is a family planning method that was formulated to be self-inject by women of reproductive age that provides a 3-months protection against pregnancy.

Dominica Nwabufo