New Research: "Baseline Assessment of the Readiness of Health Facilities to Respond to Gender-Based Violence in Guinea"

Relatively few health care providers in Guinea have received the training or have access to the information and tools needed to address the effects of gender-based violence (GBV) and sexual violence (SV). According to a baseline assessment conducted by the RESPOND Project among 141 facility managers and health care providers from three regions:

• Fewer than one-third (28%) of the providers interviewed had ever received training on GBV.
• Standard operating procedures (SOPs) and/or protocols for addressing SV are not systematically available and in use across health facilities.
• Most facilities lack the essential commodities, equipment, and supplies to respond to SV effectively.

These and other findings from the assessment are being used to inform the development of a training curriculum to support health providers and other medical staff to incorporate medical and psychosocial services for SV survivors into their practices and to ensure the ethical management of client data. The assessment, which was conducted to gauge the readiness of Guinean health centers to address SV, covered services, equipment, supplies, and SOPs, as well as providers' knowledge, attitudes, and skills needed to support SV services.

The RESPOND Project is collaborating with Guinea's Ministry of Social Affairs and the Promotion of Women and Children, the Ministry of Public Health and Hygiene, the Coalition Nationale de Guinée pour les Droits et la Citoyenneté des Femmes (CONAG-DCF), and the Association Guinéene des Assistantes Sociales (AGUIAS) to build capacity in the public health sector to expand and improve services to address GBV and SV throughout Guinea.

We invite you to learn more about RESPOND in Guinea and the results of the facility assessment:

Full report: English (PDF, 2.19MB) French (forthcoming)