Journal of School of Public Health and

  Background and Aim: Current traditional research methods for solving social problems were challenged due to limited participation of community . The health companion project was carried out with the aim of determining effective model of community participation for solving health problems in Boyerahmad and Dena township. .

  Materials and Methods : This study is a community based participatory research performed in Kohgiloyeh and Boyerahmad province 2005-2009.The study population was the entire rural and urban households of Boyerahmad and Dena county.The strategic committee of project including academic researchers, managers of health and health related sectors was formed and this committee selected six regions for research activities. In each region local directing group "health companion " was established with participation of stakeholders: academic researchers, local leaders, health providers and public representatives to guide all aspects of project. The members of the group empowered and enabled by attending training workshops for need assessment, priority setting, research methodology that through these activities the health problem priorities of the regions were recognized, the research area determined and intervention programs were designed and implemented according to these research area.

  Results: The most important achievement of this project is the methods of activities to reaching goals. Implementation of six participatory interventional proposal for solving health problems and needs are the other achievement. The frequency and means of health problems and their risk factors significantly reduced after the completion of intervention program in each region.

  Conclusion: Establishing and activities of health companion groups followed model of Planned Approach to Community Health (PATCH) that help community to form health promotion team, collecting and organizing of data, choosing health priorities, developing a comprehensive intervention plan and evaluation .

Background and Aim: Much emphasis is being put on participation of the community and parents in early child development (ECD). This article discusses the lessons learnt from the MAZDAK project, which attempts to involve the community in the Monitoring and Promoting Children’s Development Program.

Materials and Methods This was a 9-month community-based participatory research (CBPR) project of the Health System Research (HSR) type. The target population were the families residing in western Eivanak, including 300 children. All the phases of the project were conducted with participation of groups of 10 local volunteer women (in Persian singular Rezakar, plural Rezakaran), each group covering 30 children. At the end of the period challenges and limitations of the community participation were discussed in 2 focus-group discussions (FGDs) and a telephone survey with the participation of 50 of the parents.

Results: Community participation could be seen at three levels: 1. Integrating and linking the existing services and programs in community organizations; 2. Creating an interface organization of people in order to facilitate involvement of community members (Rezakaran); 3. Involving the parents themselves in the process of monitoring and promoting child development. Barriers to more active participation of parents were as follows: mothers’ occupation; number of children; father’s or other family members’ disagreement of the; holidays and bad weather; large numbers of individuals under coverage of each Rezakar which made her deeper understanding and communication with the mothers difficult; irregular follow-ups; age and educational differences between the Rezakaran and those under their coverage; frequent changing of Rezakaran.

Conclusion: Building trust, engaging and empowering people and governmental and non-governmental organizations is the greatest challenge in such a program. Experience shows that it is possible to increase the chance of success by selecting people’s favorite programs and priorities, using simple and friendly tools (ASQ Album), use of technologies to facilitate communication, selection of volunteers with due consideration of social conditions and, finally, increasing the motivation of volunteers for sustainability of activities.