Capacity Building Project for Healthcare Providers Working with Neonates, Infant and Under-five Children
AIM
Improving neonatal, infant and under 5 child-care in South Africa by means of collaborative initiatives.
OBJECTIVES
The Starfish project can be divided into neonatal, infant and under five child care objectives to influence healthcare professionals; healthcare workers, as well as organizational objectives.
Neonate, infant and under five child care (and parents)
- Establish provincial registers with baseline data regarding neonatal infant and under five care and services in South Africa.
- Improved short and long-term outcomes in neonatal, infant and child care in line with the SGDs.
- Identify care and follow-up needs of infants and under five child care in South Africa.
- Development of screening and follow-up assessment tools for the high risk infant/child-families, suitable for the national context.
- Determine parental perceptions and health needs.
- Determine neonatal, infant and under five child care outcomes in the South African context over a period of time (20+ years).
Healthcare professionals and healthcare workers (re-engineering teams)
- Human capacity building by means of a leadership program.
- To develop and present structured knowledge and clinical skills update programs to be presented to selected individuals per province.
- To improve staff confidence in various settings working with neonates and under 5 children.
- To develop leadership in multi-disciplinary teams with an appetite for sustainable change, quality of care and life-long learning.
- To develop a sense of ownership in participants.
- Improving the uptake of the latest available research evidence.
Institutional
- To determine the change in working environment in the enrolled institutions.
- Establish an industry funded research chair, neurodevelopmental laboratory and sustainable teaching and learning platform in this field.
- Establish centers of excellence for various functions related to neonatal and child care throughout South Africa.
- Establish sustainable partnerships with relevant industry and international partners.
PROJECT DESIGN
Nine one-day face-to-face sessions of groups of up to 50 persons.
Topics covered
- Fetal development and normal adaptation to the extra-uterine environment,
- The 4th stage,
- Assessment of the neonate,
- Newborn care during the 4th trimester,
- Puerperium,
- Child illness,
- Emergency child care,
- Nutrition,
- Normal development
SHORT LEARNING PROGRAMMES EMBEDDED IN PROJECT
STARFISH - Short Learning Program on neonatal, infant and under five childcare for the multi-professional health care team
