NFPB Confident Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Programme Will Meet Objective

The National Family Planning Board (NFPB) is expressing confidence that its Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)-funded Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Programme will meet its objective.

The project is aimed at preventing pregnancy, especially second pregnancies, in adolescent girls.

Speaking at a recent JIS ‘Think Tank’, Behaviour Change Communication Coordinator, Marion Waysome-McIntyre, explained that the project started in 2016 with funding made available by the IDB.

The implementation of activities began in 2018.

“We have developed and launched a mass media campaign entitled ‘Live Life before you Give Life’. We have developed a plethora of educational materials which include flyers, posters, social media, infographics, which was launched this week on our social media platforms. We have provided sexual and reproductive health services, which include condoms, and primarily Jadelle contraceptive implants, at various sites in 12 parishes across the island,” she noted.

Those, Mrs. Waysome-McIntyre said, are being offered through the major hospitals in the parishes where girls are now linked in two ways.

“If they have a child at the hospital, they are offered Jadelle before they leave. Additionally, we now link them from the health centre, so when girls come in to the family planning clinic, or are picked up in the community, their point of entry would be the clinic,” she said.

“From the clinic, they would now be linked to the hospital to receive Jadelle,” Mrs. Waysome-McIntyre added.

She informed that the intrauterine device (IUD) and Depo-Provera injection are also among the options for the teens.

The Behaviour Change Communication Coordinator said that several training sessions have been conducted with medical doctors to build their capacity to insert the contraceptive implant.

This, she said, is geared towards having more doctors who are able to offer Jadelle outside of the hospital setting, “so many of the doctors who have been trained work at the primary healthcare facilities and will be able to offer Jadelle at the family planning clinic”.

The Behaviour Change Communication Coordinator said that over the years, Jadelle has always been available, but it was always isolated to the hospital setting.

“That’s something that this project is trying to change to ensure that as the years pass by, the health facility will be a one-stop-shop. You go in for family planning methods, you can have access to all of them, including Jadelle,” she explained.

Mrs. Waysome-McIntyre said that training has been conducted among stakeholders who are involved in adolescent health or social services, “so we have developed a training manual entitled ‘Creating an Adolescent-Friendly Service Delivery’.”

She noted that a number of groups have been trained using the manual.

“We have trained persons from the Women’s Centre, persons from our Regional Health Authorities in the form of Community Health Aides and Community Peer Educators, nurses, midwives, all persons who would be interacting in some shape or form with teenagers,” she further advised.

“The real focus of that training is just how we enable them to provide service to teenagers in a way that is non-judgmental and is adolescent-friendly,” she said.

Mrs. Waysome-McIntyre noted that several adolescent engagements have been held, adding that COVID-19 has put a damper on that; however, the team has done their best in the virtual space.

The NFPB Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Campaign, which is being done in collaboration with the Women’s Centre of Jamaica Foundation, was launched virtually on the NFPB social media platforms on Wednesday, February 24.

The campaign is geared at increasing sexual and reproductive health-seeking behaviours among boys and girls, increase public awareness of sexual and reproductive health among adolescents, and increase access to long-acting reversible contraceptives. –