Integrated School Health Policy South Africa

Project description

The Integrated School Health Policy (ISHP) was launched in 2012 across the 9 South African provinces as part of the National Government strategy to reduce maternal and child mortalities and improve educational outcomes. The ISHP aims to “realise the educational rights of all children, including those who are most vulnerable, through schools becoming inclusive centres of learning, care and support”. It is jointly implemented by three government departments, the National Department of Health (NDoH), the National Department of Basic Education (DBE) and the National Department of Social Development (DSD), and their respective provincial and district departments.

The Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through GIZ supports the DoH in the framework of the Multi-sector HIV Prevention Programme (MHIVP) in strengthening coordination for an effective HIV response, to increase the use of appropriate general and counselling services of HIV prevention available in all sectors by population groups at risk.

The specific contribution of the Technical Cooperation (TC) component – ‘MHIVP’ is the support to the steering and management structures of partners at national, regional, and local levels for an effective coordination of a multi-sector integrated HIV/TB and STI response, workplace prevention in the private sector, HIV education measures, and utilisation of Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) services planned for young people.

Our project objective is to improve the structural and institutional pre-conditions to implement national strategies that lead to improved, extended and more comprehensive HIV prevention measures for young people (10-24 years of age).

Scope of work

Provide support to the Tasks Teams responsible for the ISHP (comprised of the departments of health, education and social development) in the target province and districts, through:

1. Supporting Capacity Building measures at all levels

• Capacity Assessment
• Determining the data & information collection and analysis approach
• Capacity Development (CD) strategy
• Defining indicators of progress and monitoring plan of CD
• Defining planning and needed resources to implement the CD
• Designing the core training packages in conjunction with GIZ and the Provincial and District Task Teams
• Implementing CD activities (Training, Training of Trainers, Mentoring, Coaching)
• Implementing Monitoring plan of CD

2. Supporting the Task Teams in the Execution of their Tasks -Advisory Services

• Developing a five-year implementation plan / yearly operational plan
• Supporting and monitoring the implementation of Provincial Task Team (PTT) and District Task Teams’ (DTT) tasks.
• Providing advisory to the Liaison Officers to enable them to offer better support to the Task Teams

3. Reporting and Knowledge Management (KM)

• Developing a communication strategy for assuring the flow of information between key stakeholders and partners
• Developing Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) plan
• Define and implementing KM strategy and tools with GIZ
• Developing knowledge sharing workshops

Results

Enabling the interdisciplinary task team responsible for the implementation of the ISHP at provincial and district level in the Eastern Cape to complete the tasks outlined in the ISHP through capacity building sessions, mentoring and coaching.