SPRING/Haiti has played a key role in enhancing Nutrition Assessment, Counseling, and Support (NACS) leadership at the district and facility level. Last year, SPRING/Haiti participated in several meetings with the both national and international partners to track the health facilities’ progress in integrating NACS services into their current programs. Last September, SPRING/Haiti, in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Health/Nutrition Directorate, organized a two-day review and planning meeting that convened USAID, health facility directors, departmental nutrition focal points, and implementing partners.
The objective of the meeting was to discuss NACS progress to date, lessons learned, and progress toward using QI to reduce bottlenecks in the delivery of the NACS continuum of care. The meeting fostered transparent dialogue to troubleshoot common problems, and generated a lot of participant interest. Health facilities agreed on seven criteria for determining a ‘NACS Competent’ health facility Based on these criteria, they then conducted a gap identification and solutions brainstorming exercise tailored to their own facility to draw out the areas where help was most needed to improve the quality of nutrition services within their facility. The facility needs assessments provided an indication to SPRING/Haiti of where the project should emphasize its support for each facility (i.e. What type of training is most needed and for whom? Do they have sufficient tools and materials?). SPRING/Haiti plans to tailor its support to the 17 health facilities it will work with in the coming year, based on the needs identified during this workshop.
