Healthy Timing & Spacing of Pregnancy Challenge: Faith Leaders and community support women to use family planning for healthier mothers and children

High fertility, inadequate knowledge of Healthy Timing & Spacing of Pregnancies (HTSP), & how to achieve it through use of modern methods of family planning (FP) contribute to low FP use, high maternal & child mortality & morbidity (MMR/IMR) in Kenya. Use of FP reduces MMR/IMR by preventing unintended pregnancies. A multi-dimensional approach to change social norms around FP is a KEY strategy to link HTSP/FP to healthier moms, children, communities & economic stability. Faith Leaders (FL), men, women, & non-traditional community groups play critical roles in education on HTSP/FP as learned from implementing pilot projects funded by BMGF & USAID. Our goal is two-fold. First: To increase use of FP at scale within Siaya County, Kenya, through the proven approaches & lessons learned such as a social accountability approach called citizen voice & action (CVA) that combines accountability with local advocacy by citizens, training of FL in the Channels of Hope methodology, integrated training in HTSP/FP counseling for community health volunteers (CHVs), influential community groups, health workers (HW), skills training of HW in providing long acting reversible contraceptives (LARC), & FP logistics strengthening. Secondly, to demonstrate the role FBOs play within secular/faith communities to increase use of FP. The Big Questions are (1) the innovation to reach scale, will require all six Siaya Sub-County health management teams (HMT) to submit sub-county Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on why/how to be part of the scale-up; (2) Can we in collaboration with Ministry of Health (MOH) increase the number of CHVs who can counsel on &provide LARCs? & (3) Will Siaya County MOH create a line item for HTSP/FP & increase overall funding for MCH by end of the project? Anticipated outputs include: number of groups trained in HTSP/FP, who promote use of FP & HMT implement new ideas to promote & institutionalize HTSP/FP. The key outcome is increased FP use throughout Siaya County.