Strengthening the Role of Community Health Volunteers Through a Behaviour Change Intervention to Improve Complementary Feeding Practices

Appropriate complementary feeding (CF) is essential for promoting optimal child growth and development while preventing malnutrition, stunting, and other long-term health problems. However, mothers often encounter challenges in providing appropriate complementary foods, partly due to limited access to accurate nutrition information. Community health volunteers (cadres) play a strategic role in delivering health education to families. This community engagement program aimed to strengthen the capacity of community health volunteers as behaviour change agents through an integrated intervention consisting of cadre training, complementary feeding education, cooking demonstrations, and household mentoring. Eight cadres from Korong Gadang Integrated Health Posts, Kuranji Health Center, Padang, participated in a structured training program consisting of lectures, focus group discussions, and cooking demonstrations on complementary feeding. Cadres' knowledge was assessed before and after the training using a 10-item questionnaire. Following the training, cadres provided health education to mothers in their respective communities. The findings indicate that the training effectively improved cadres' knowledge and strengthened their capacity to provide complementary feeding education. In addition, education delivered by trained cadres contributed to improved maternal knowledge regarding optimal complementary feeding practices. This community engagement program demonstrated that strengthening community health volunteers through behaviour change intervention improved cadres’ knowledge and enhanced their capacity to provide complementary feeding education. Furthermore, cadre-led education contributed to improved maternal knowledge regarding optimal complementary feeding practices. Empowering community health volunteers represents a feasible community-based strategy to increase access to evidence-based complementary feeding information.