The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends the use of home-based records as a complement to facility-based records, to improve care seeking behaviours, men’s involvement and support in the household, maternal and child home care practices, infant and child feeding, and communication between health workers and women, parents and caregivers.

Despite the wide use of home-based records, implementation challenges persist. The guide ‘Strengthening implementation of home-based records for maternal, newborn and child health: a guide for country programme managers’ was developed by the WHO, UNICEF and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in response to the implementation needs.

WHO, UNICEF and JICA officially launched the implementation guide on April 20, 2023. Speakers presented how to use the guide to establish milestones to track progress against eight factors for successful implementation of home-based records, and shared country implementation experiences.

This webinar was hosted by WHO, UNICEF and JICA, with the support of the Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and the Quality of Care subgroup of the Child Health Task Force.

The World Health Organization and UNICEF launched on March 28 2023 the Nurturing Care Handbook and Nurturing Care Practice Guide. These two publications are the latest in a series of resources to support implementation of the Nurturing Care Framework. This webinar included an overview of the Handbook and Practice Guide as well as reflections on how they build on existing packages and can be used to enhance advocacy and capacity building efforts at regional and national levels.

Speakers:

• Anshu Banerjee, Assistant Director-General (a.i) Division of Universal Health Coverage & Life course and Director, Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing, World Health Organization
• Erinna Dia, ECD Associate Director, Nutrition and Child Development Section, UNICEF
• Bernadette Daelmans, Unit Head, Child Health and Development Unit, World Health Organization
• Sheila Manji, ECD Specialist, Child Health and Development Unit, World Health Organization
• Anne Detjen, Child Health Specialist Child and Community Health Unit, UNICEF
• Caroline Mwangi, Head of Division, Neonatal and Child Health, Ministry of Health Kenya
• Melanie Picolo, Maternal, Newborn, Child Health and Nutrition Program Manager, PATH Mozambique
• Rajesh Mehta, Consultant to World Health Organization and Former Regional Adviser, WHO South-East Asia Regional Office

This webinar was organized by the World Health Organization and UNICEF, in collaboration with the Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, the Quality of Care subgroup of the Child Health Task Force, and the Early Childhood Development Action Network.

Top photo credit: © UNICEF Perú/Hildebrandt C