Reproductive Health Materials Working Group Minutes of Meeting January 26, 1996 Meeting

Agenda

  • Internet Meeting Followup
  • Reproductive Health Task Force at USAID
  • Training Materials Database
  • FHIbase
  • Administrative Items

Internet Meeting Followup

  • Ways to followup Thursday’s Internet meeting were discussed. A number of suggestions were made as to what was needed. The consensus of the group was that a homepage should be developed. Its main audience will be group members and other similar organizations. A working group was formed to determine what information should be included on the homepage as well as the way in which it will be managed. The working group members are: Peggy D’Adamo, JHU/CCP; Steve Goldstein, JHU/CCP; Janice Miller, MSH; Cathy Murphy, INTRAH; Elizabeth Ralston, USAID; Joanne Tzanis, AVSC.
  • Maria Busquets-Moura will try to have CA’s URLS identified (and pointed to) on the USAID homepage. Steve Goldstein will forward all URLs to her.

Reproductive Health Task Force at USAID

  • STD Continuing Education Series
    Elizabeth Ralston discussed the STD Series. To date there have been 7 seminars. The purpose of the seminars is to keep the field up to date on the latest information regarding STDs. Particular attention is given to the integration of STD services with other RH services. Summaries of and handout from the seminars are available from Elizabeth. She also shared the list of people currently invited to the seminars and asked that those organizations not represented provide her with contact names.
  • Reproductive Health Listserv
    Elizabeth also talked about the Reproductive Health Listserv (REPRO-HLTH-L) operated by USAID. The goal of the listserv is to disseminate information on reproductive health and to share lessons learned in programs. Currently there are about 100 members, all of whom are associated with AID. Membership is soon to be expanded to other interested parties but Elizabeth asked the group for information on ways to encourage use of the listserv. She also provided the list of topics covered and information on how subscribe.
  • Innovative Reproductive Health Programs Project
    Elizabeth and Lori Ashford of PRB described the Innovative Reproductive Health Programs Project which is an attempt to collect lessons learned in reproductive health. The stories would be compiled (perhaps in a binder) and would provide information on barriers to and strengths of integrated RH programs. The audience includes USAID, cooperating agencies, other donors, the research community and RH programmers. Information sources such as the USAID RH baseline survey, POPLINE, MEDLINE, the USAID Development Information System, and journals will be used as information sources. Proposed formats for the information were shared and Elizabeth asked if this was the sort of information that people were interested in and for any additions that might make the project more useful.

Training Materials Database

  • History of the Database
    Cathy Murphy provided a bit of history on the Training Materials Database which is currently housed at INTRAH. She proposed that the Database be incorporated into POPLINE where each item could be coded as belonging to the Database. In order to do this, the information now included would be edited to conform to the POPLINE format and each organization would need to submit a copy of each item to PIP for abstracting.
  • Types of Materials
    Three types of materials currently contained in the Database are not included in POPLINE: works in progress, continuing series, and audiovisual materials.Including works in progress on the Reproductive Health Materials Working Group web site was discussed; it was suggested that sharing this information at working group meetings may be adequate.For continuing series, each item could be included in POPLINE as a separate record.Audiovisual materials could be included in POPLINE but organizations will have to consider how they wish them to be included. POPLINE’s policy is to make one copy of all listed materials available for free to people in….(rest is missing)

FHIbase, a multilingual terminology database

  • Helen Knight presented information on a software program FHI is currently using. She proposed that FHI take over the work on the Translation Glossary and showed ways in which this software could improve upon the current system. For example, outputs could be provided by language or organization, synonyms could be easily cross-referenced and notes could be added about each term. Each organization could request printouts of the glossary suited to their needs.
    The group agreed that this system would be useful and JHPIEGO will work with FHI to transfer the glossary.

Administrative Items

  • Peggy D’Adamo will replace Jennifer Butler as a co-chair of the group.
  • The next meeting will be held at 9:30 am on Wednesday May 15, 1996. The location is yet to be determined.