Core Group

Vision

The Nutrition Working Group underscores the critical role of nutrition in maternal and child survival and health through dissemination of state-of-the-art information and approaches essential for quality nutrition programming.

Leadership

Working Group Co-Chairs:
Jennifer Nielsen, HKI
Kathryn Reider, World Vision
Justine Kavle, PATH 

Tools/Resources

Essential Nutrition Actions (ENA) Framework

The Essential Nutrition Actions (ENA) framework  an operational framework for managing the advocacy, planning and delivery of an integrated package of preventive nutrition actions encompassing infant and young child feeding (IYCF), micronutrients and women's nutrition. Using multiple contact points, it targets health services and behavior change communication support (BCC) to women and young children during the first 1,000 days of life - from conception through the first two years of life - when nutrient requirements are increased, the risks of undernutrition are great, and the consequences of deficiencies most likely to be irreversible. All these actions have been proven to improve nutritional status and reduce mortality.

The training component for the implementation of the ENA framework at both the health facility and community levels include 3 guides as follows:

1.The Booklet of Key ENA Messages (Word Version)/ French (Word) illustrates the key ENA messages and can be used by those implementing and supporting health, nutrition, and food security programs for improving nutrition practices among pregnant and lactating mothers and children under two.

2. ENA Health Worker Training Guide (Word Version)/ French (Word) equips health service providers with the technical, action-oriented nutrition knowledge and counseling skills needed to support pregnant women, mothers with children under two years of age, and other key family members to adopt optimal nutrition practices.

2b. ENA Health Worker Handouts (Word Version)/ French (Word)

3. ENA Community Volunteers Training Guide (Word Version)/ French (Word) equips semi-literate or illiterate Community Volunteers with the basic action-oriented nutrition knowledge and counseling skills needed to support pregnant women, mothers with children under two years and other key family members to adopt optimal nutrition practices

Nutrition Program Design Assistant: A Tool for Program Planners (NPDA)

The NPDA helps program planning teams design the nutrition component of their programs and select the most appropriate community-based nutrition approaches for their specific geographic target areas.  The NPDA was created as a response to frustration that many nutrition programs, including well-implemented ones, don't achieve their intended results because of a key program design mistake: they use the wrong approach to address their context-specific nutrition problems. The NPDA provides much needed guidance on how to select an approach and compare and contrast approaches so that a team can determine which one(s) would best suit their programming needs.  The Reference Guide provides guidance on analyzing the nutrition situation, establishing objectives, and selecting a combination of approaches to suit the local nutrition situation and the program's resources and objectives.  The Workbook is a place to record data, decisions, and decision-making rationale.

NDPA Workshop
The workshop provided participants with experience using the tool and prepared them to use the tool for program planning in the field.  The workshop materials (found in the NPDA link above) can be used to support workshops or activities with the NPDA.

Other Resources:

• Positive Deviance / Hearth
• Dietary Guide: Maternal Nutrition During Pregnancy and Lactation 
• Diffusion of Innovations: The Integration of Vitamin A Supplementation Into Community-Directed Treatment with Ivermectin: A Practical Guide for Africa (HKI)

Presentations, Reports & Webinars

Webinar: Integration of Care for Child Development in Existing Health Services (11/15/2012) CCH WG

Report: Fat in the Critical 1000 Days: Ensuring Adequacy of Essential Dietary Fats for Mothers and Children in Low and Middle Income Countries (April 7, 2011)

Report: PD/Hearth Technical Advisory Group (TAG) Meeting Report (February 6, 2009)

Presentation: MOST Powerpoint: Implications Of Research Findings For Programs To Reduce Micronutrient Deficiencies

Report: Community-based Therapeutic Care (CTC): Managing Severe Acute Malnutrition in Emergencies and Development

Useful Links

• 1,000 Days
• A2Z: The USAID Micronutrient and Child Blindness Project
• Alive & Thrive
• CMAM Forum
• FAO - Right to Food
• Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance (FANTA)
• Food Security and Nutrition Network
• Global Breastfeeding
• iLiNS Project
• KPC Module 2: Breastfeeding and Infant and Young Child Feeding (June 2006 Version)
• LINKAGES Project
• Literature Review: Community Interventions to Promote Optimal Breastfeeding

• Maternal Infant Young Child Nutrition - Family Planning (MIYCN-FP) Integration Toolkit

• PROFILES
• Program Assessment Guide (PAG)
• ProPAN - A tool to improve IYCF
• Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN)
• Secure Nutrition - linking agriculture, food security, and nutrition
• Sharing U.S. Technology to Aid in the Improvement of Nutrition (SUSTAIN) Project
• Strengthening Partnerships, Results and Innovations in Nutrition Globally (SPRING) Project
• UNICEF: Community based IYCF Resources
• UNICEF: Global Nutrition Cluster
• United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition (UNSCN)
• USAID's Infant & Young Child Nutrition Project
• WASH and Nutrition / WASHplus
• WHO: e-Library of Evidence for Nutrition Actions (eLENA)

Past Highlights