The Need for Change Management

Health professionals around the world have the medical/clinical knowledge, technology, and experience to make substantial improvements in maternal and child health, reproductive health and family planning, HIV/AIDS, and other infectious diseases. Everyone working to improve health is fundamentally in the business of fostering, leading, or implementing change. But not everyone involved in this work has a clear pathway that links proven change practices with evidence-based clinical and programmatic practices. Many effective practices in Family Planning and Maternal and Child Health are known but are not being scaled-up. In many cases, the connection between technical knowledge and known approaches for successful change is missing. Change is often unplanned, leading to failures in scale-up.  The VFCP marries technical knowledge about best practices in health with proven approaches to introduce and scale up change.

Program Overview

The Virtual Fostering Change Program (VFCP) is an Internet-based blended learning program that guides teams through the change process and enables teams to introduce and scale up a proven health intervention best practice. The program is facilitated by experts in public health and change management. Part I of the program includes an introduction to fostering change, selecting a best practice, and developing an action plan to introduce the change. Part II supports teams through the introduction of their best practice. Part III guides teams through the process of creating a scale up plan. Part IV concludes with support to bring the best practice to scale.

Program Objectives

The objective of the VFCP is to support teams to connect best practices with a proven change process to ensure that interventions are taken to scale and have lasting impact. Through the VFCP, teams are enabled to:

• Identify and adapt best practices that will improve health outcomes in their settings
• Implement an introduction of a chosen best practice
• Develop a plan for scaling up a chosen best practice
• Scale up a chosen best practice
• Support and participate in a network of leaders in health institutions
• Develop professionally and personally

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    Additional Reading and Resources

    • VFCP Flyer