The document discusses a mobile health project aimed at supporting community health workers (CHWs) and community health extension workers (CHEWs) in Kenya. The project used mobile technologies like smartphones and apps to provide: 1) Training and continuing education for CHWs and CHEWs through mobile learning tools and peer-to-peer mentoring via messaging apps. 2) Decision support for CHWs through a referral app that helps with developmental milestone assessments. 3) Data collection capabilities to support community outreach, monitoring, and advocacy efforts. The project aims to demonstrate how mobile technologies can strengthen primary healthcare systems by enhancing community worker skills and connections to better serve communities.

1. Mobiles, Development & Global
Health Training: A way forward
The mCHW project
Anne Geniets
University of Oxford

2. What was your aim and what challenge in mHealth
were you addressing?
• To design, develop, implement and evaluate a mobile
learning intervention to support the professional
education of CHVs and CHEWs
• By doing so:
– Contribute to the evidence base on the effectiveness of
mobile-based activities to increase CHWs' capabilities
through CHEW supervision/mentorship and peer learning
• To determine how mobile based supervision and
training can be embedded within existing local primary
health infrastructure

3. Referral App
• Focus: Developmental
Milestones
• Leverages on Smart phone
technology
• Supports referral decision making
• Update based on feedback

4. Participatory Action Research

5. CHW CHEW

9. What was critical to successfully addressing this
challenge?
• UCL-Amref-Oxford Partnership & relationship
with CHVs and CHEWs in our two communities
in Kenya
• Technology & Resources
• Complex challenge – complex intervention

10. What three key impacts do you feel you’ve made?
• We’ve shown that with enough upfront
understanding of the context and of people’s
practice
• Mobile intervention is:
– Training tool
– Job aid
– Data collection tool
– Community mobilisation & advocacy

11. • Mobile tools
– Mobile job aid & supervision: REFER App
– Mentorship & social support: Whatsapp
– App development for CHEWs: ALPHA App
• Training
– Formal: MoH & CHEWs
– On-the-ground: Peer-to-peer
– Capacity building: Amref – Oxford/UCL
• Community support
– For those with children with disabilities
– Exchange visits

12. • Four key areas of contributions of a mobile
health and training intervention
– For CHVs and CHEWs
– For the community
– For mHealth programming & research
– For Health Systems Strengthening

13. What technologies are you using? (Olajide)
• Leverages on smartphone technology
• HTML 5, works online and offline

15. • http://www.mchw.org |@m_CHW