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sign upWorldwide, there are more than 135 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. Although women and girls living in refugee camps have a greater need for contraception and safe abortion service, reproductive services are often minimal or non-existent. As a result, it’s imperative that we support providers in these settings to deliver comprehensive health services, including safe abortion and post-abortion care services.
To help close the service-delivery gap in abortion care in humanitarian settings, Ipas launched an online toolkit: Abortion attitude transformation: A values clarification toolkit for humanitarian audiences.
The toolkit is a tailored version of Ipas’ original VCAT toolkit and focuses on addressing one of the key barriers to access: the stigma surrounding abortion, as well as a lack of knowledge around abortion procedure and its legal status.
If you’re yet to come across values clarification attitude transformation (VCAT) training, VCAT workshops have been found to be effective at improving participants’ knowledge, attitudes and behavioural intentions related to abortion care, especially among those who come to the workshops with the least knowledge and most negative attitudes about abortion. The training helps providers and development professionals to understand the importance of safe abortion care, while becoming more comfortable and confident advocates and providers of abortion.
Commenting on the launch of the toolkit, Ipas’ Senior Medical Scientist, Bill Powell, shared the following on the exercises and facilitated discussions outlined in this toolkit:
“these will give humanitarian professionals the chance to explore their values, attitudes and knowledge related to abortion, with the goal of closing the service delivery gap for abortion care.”
Download Abortion attitude transformation: A values clarification toolkit for humanitarian audiences
