Background
Midwives working in remote facilities have little opportunity to receive technical support and coaching services. To close this gap and support rural midwives the Afghan Midwives Association (AMA) designed a field-based mentorship program for midwives working in remote areas.
Methods
The process included five stages: Conduct base line assessment of mentees (midwives) and health facilities. Identify and select of mentees through competitive process. Provide on-the-job coaching and mentoring services to the mentees. Assess the progress of the midwives regularly using existing quality assurance performance standards. End-line / final evaluation
Results:
That results of assessments were encouraging antenatal care (ANC), rising from an average of 20% at the baseline to 88% in the final assessment round. Comparable improvements were found for normal labor, childbirth, and immediate newborn care (19% to 85%), postnatal care (16% to 85%), management of antenatal, intra-partum and postpartum complications (15% to 94%), and support systems (38% to 81%)
