Health Workers for Change: developing the initiative

This paper describes an intervention developed in South Africa for health workers at the health facility level, and designed to explore interpersonal relations among health workers and between health workers and female clients. Several participatory methods to explore the provider–client relationship were tested with health workers. Health workers identified many constraints to the provision of adequate health services and that these constraints affected their work in general and their relationship with women clients in particular. Constraints included inadequacies and inefficiencies in management and the lack of gender sensitivity training. The participatory approach was found to be acceptable to the participants and effective in exploring interpersonal relationships.