Topics: Community health workers, CHW role, Community and home-based care for PLWHA, Motivation/incentives, Performance management, Recognition/remuneration, Recruitment, Retention of health workers/reducing attrition, Supervision, Task definition, Task shifting, Training, HIV/AIDS, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health

A key element of USAID’s strategic approach to maternal and child health (MCH) is to increase the number of functional community health workers serving in USAID priority countries by at least 100,000 by 2013. At the request of the USAID MCH team, the Health Care Improvement Project (HCI) developed a tool that defines a set of key elements needed for community health worker programs to function effectively and that evaluate programs on specific criteria, which were defined by recent literature reviews on CHW programs (see link below) and by suggestions from experts. The CHW Program Assessment and Improvement Matrix (CHW AIM) tool examines 15 programmatic components that are critical to successfully supporting CHWs. These include: recruitment; the role of CHWs; initial and continuing training; equipment and supplies; supervision; individual performance evaluation; incentives; community involvement; referral system; opportunity for advancement; documentation and information management; linkages to the health system; program performance evaluation; and community ownership.