Nadrah Arfizah Arifin (MBBS, MPH, IBCLC) is a medical professional in public health and a lactation
consultant who obtained her medical degree from University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur in 2004. Her
involvement in breastfeeding support and advocacy started in 2007 as a local breastfeeding supporter
at her workplace. She further involved in community-based breastfeeding support voluntarily by joining
the Malaysian Breastfeeding Peer Counselor Association (MBfPCA) in 2010. She became the first
breastfeeding peer counsellor of MBfPCA who successfully upgraded to become the program trainer in
2011 to 2012, thus making the framework for Train of Trainer program in MBfPCA in effort to further
grow the network. She is currently the President of MBfPCA and together with other Core Trainers, they
plan for sustainability of breastfeeding support by peer counsellors for Malaysian community. While
doing her Doctoral degree in Public Health (DrPH), she is also working on few projects in MBfPCA
particularly in capacity building of breastfeeding peer counselors with the interest of maintaining its
integrity, reliability and relevancy through monitoring and evaluation of community breastfeeding
support program.
The roles of peer counselors (PC) in breastfeeding support is important to reach mothers and families in community as they would bridge the gaps within the warm chain of breastfeeding support. However, challenges has overcome in many forms, especially their reliability in providing breastfeeding support skills and knowledge. Malaysian Breastfeeding Peer Counselors (MBfPC) program has started in 2010 to enhance breastfeeding support for Malaysian community. Its training syllabus were adapted and modulated to be culturally acceptable. More than 500 PCs were trained. The original syllabus was continuously being revised prior to each training since Malaysia is multicultural with great diversity, with few adaptations of new tools to enhance the understanding among the trainees whom majority are not health personnel. MBfPC Association (MBfPCA) is responsible to reliability queries by other parties, thus overseen the needs for MBfPC training reform. Three training levels were introduced in 2016; entrance, advanced, and train-of-trainers; to increase reliability of certified PC, even though the sustainability of the network is yet to be observed. The mechanisms used to select, train and certify the PCs had strengthened the roles and functional relevancy of MBfPCA existence in Malaysian scenario. This presentation will share the challenges and framework of capacity building among PCs to function as breastfeeding peer supporters in Malaysian context.
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