Capacity Building Training Module on Prevention of Underage Pregnancy for Staff of District and Divisional Level Women and Child Development Units

Underage pregnancies can lead to adverse health outcomes for children along with several other social issues. Therefore, the Ministry has prepared a Training Module in three languages for training field officers attached to district and divisional level Women and Child Development Units to safeguard the children through duly identifying causes and factors including the social, economic and educational background that affect this situation and address such issues with appropriate solutions. Dr Lakshman Senanayake, a Specialist in Reproductive Health with wide knowledge in the field, and Mrs Shriyani Perera, an External Consultant and a Gender Specialist, were instrumental in developing the module. Capacity building of the staff of district and divisional level Women and Child Development Units in connection with the prevention of underage pregnancies is expected to be done through this module. Through this, the officers of the training pool under the Ministry will be trained, and they will train the Child Rights Promotion Officers, Women Development Officers, Child Protection Officers and Counselling Officers working in the Women and Child Development Units in District and Divisional Secretariats. The training aims to identify the target group (eg. School children, families with expatriate parents, parents, teachers) and provide the knowledge gained during the training to suit each group.