Communications Department
In order to guarantee timely and quality attention to early childhood, 320 educational agents and community mothers from 13 regions of the Colombian Family Welfare Institute (ICBF) were certified in “Breastfeeding, re-lactation and complementary feeding”. The course, which was conducted virtually, was carried out by the Universidad Industrial de Santander, through the Proinapsa Institute.
During this diploma course, which is part of the inter-administrative contract signed between the ICBF, Icetex and the Proinapsa Institute UIS, participants also strengthen skills and techniques to provide counseling, in the quest to continue promoting, protecting and supporting breastfeeding and the proper introduction of food.
“This diploma course is the result of the joint work between you as participants and our team. You worked to strengthen this important work with mothers, fathers and caregivers who have children in early childhood, with the sole purpose of promoting, protecting and supporting breastfeeding,” said Blanca Patricia Mantilla Uribe, director of the Proinapsa Institute.
It is worth noting that these 320 certified people were deserving of this recognition for having achieved the competencies proposed in the diploma course, which was attended by about 400 people from the ICBF regions of: Amazonas, Antioquia, Atlántico, Bolívar, Cesar, Norte de Santander, Quindío, Santander, San Andrés, Tolima, Valle del Cauca, Vaupés and vichada.
“This is an opportunity that we have worked from the ICBF to ensure that community mothers have better opportunities and can contribute to the strengthening in the provision of the initial education service. Take advantage of this training process on breastfeeding, re-lactation and complementary feeding for your personal and professional life”, expressed Laura Viviana Delgado Tengono, professional of the Early Childhood Directorate of the ICBF.
In addition, she said that “the challenge is to continue encouraging these training processes and continuous training. We thank the UIS, because we know that its entire team was attentive to the particular needs of our educational agents, community mothers and fathers,” said the ICBF professional.
During the certification event, held virtually, the path followed during the development of the diploma course was shared, with the academic and emotional feelings experienced. As well as the achievements reached by the students: from learning how to use the platform, to the completion of the activities.
“It is a great experience; this diploma course allows me to strengthen my knowledge. In addition, it was a great help to support me in my work. I also found the methodology to be excellent because I distributed my time to solve the activities. I was able to quickly familiarize myself with the platform”, added one of the participants of the course.
Finally, the invitation to the participants is to continue working with families and communities, so that, through the tools obtained in the course, they can make possible the reality of successful breastfeeding and adequate complementary feeding for more children in the country.
About the course
The course was conducted virtually, with a duration of 120 hours, with permanent tutorials and synchronous and asynchronous activities. It was divided into 10 groups and had 5 modules that strengthened their skills to provide good care to nursing mothers, fathers, caregivers, children in early childhood.
The modules were as follows:
Module 1. Orientation and identification of pre-knowledge.
Module 2. Principles of breastfeeding, counseling and positive parenting.
Module 3. Challenges in breastfeeding: re-lactation and special cases.
Module 4. Complementary feeding
Module 5. Training of trainers.