Sierra Leone National Community Health Worker Policy

Sierra Leone's National Community Health Worker (CHW) Policy, first launched in 2012 to harmonize existing community health programs under one framework, was revised for 2016 to 2020 as part of the country's post-Ebola health sector recovery strategy and relaunched in February 2017 with roughly 15,000 CHWs selected by their communities and trained to deliver a basic package of care. CHWs under the policy provide reproductive, maternal, neonatal and child health services, preventive and treatment services for common childhood illnesses such as malaria, diarrhea and pneumonia, nutrition services, and reporting of births, maternal deaths and disease outbreaks; a further revision beginning in 2021 has worked to integrate all CHW cadres under a single national policy to extend coverage to hard-to-reach communities.