Together For Fertility

 

Project financed by: Erasmus+

Project period: November 2021 – June 2024

Reference number: 2021-1-HR01-KA220-ADU-000033647

Project budget: 159.736,00 EUR

 

Partners:

Roda - Roditelji u akciji (Croatia)

Progress Consult Dán-Magyar Fejlesztési Tanácsadó Kft. (secretariat of the European Basic Skills Network) (Hungary)

Stowarzyszenie na Rzecz Leczenia Niepłodności i Wspierania Adopcji "Nasz Bocian" (Poland)

Sdruzhenie Zachatie (Bulgaria)

 

 

Background
The project partners' work with adults facing infertility in over the past three decades has shown that there is a large need to raise their general level of knowledge about health, especially as it relates to fertility. Unfortunetly, as is the case with most health information, evidence-based information is more likely to be presented in a complex way, and therefore more easily reach (only) by people with higher levels of literacy and education. Infertility is a growing problem in Europe, where currently one in six couples require fertility treatments in order to become parents, a number that will continue to rise due to changes in the environment and lifestyles. At the same time, the urgent need to provide health education during the COVID-19 crisis has showed us how difficult but vital it is to reach people with health information in a way they can understand and use it, adapting the information to national langauges, to be understandable by people of various levels of literacy and education.

Information on evidence-based health choices and options are especially lacking in the languages of Central and Eastern Europe, a gap which this project addresses by improving access to information on fertility in four CEE languages. This project addresses also the need for organisations involved in health education in fertility to improve their capacities for adapting information to adults with lowe levels of literacy and education, increases the amount of information available on the health topic of fertility in four CEE languages, and thus will bring health information to adults facing infertility, by providing them with evidence-based, understandable and attractive information in their national language.

Objectives
Internet and social media have increased the amount of information people can access about (in)fertility but unfortunetly have not necesarily increased the quality, understandability or accessibility of this information, especially in the languages of Central and Eastern Europe. For this reason, the objectives of this project are:

1. to increase the capacities of all partner organisations for preparing and delivering health information to adults with lower levels of literacy and education,
2. to increase the capacities of all partner organisations for developing high-quality educational curricula and learning materials in health education,
3. to produce an innovative, evidence-based train-the-trainer curriculum for training organisation staff and members to hold peer-to-peer workshops for adults wishing to learn more about (in)fertility,
4. to produce evidence-based information on (in)fertility that can be shared in-person (printed) and online, in four Central- Eastern European languages.

Implementation Activities
The project will involve three training activities for staff and senior volunteers of the partner organsiations:

1. Training on delivering health education and information to adults with lower levels of literacy and education
2. Training on how to develop high-quality adult-learning curricula for health education
3. Piloting a train-the-trainer curriculum for (in)fertility education

The project results are four outputs:

1. A booklet on communicating health-related topics to people with lower levels of literacy and education
2. A high-quality adult education train-the-trainer curriculum for (in)fertilty education workshops
3. A printed book on (in)fertiltiy for adults, in five languages (EN, HR, HU, PO, BG)
4. Digital materials on (in)fertiltiy for adults, adapted for people with lower levels of literacy and education, in five languages (EN, HR, HU, PO, BG)

The project will also include dissemination events in all the partner countries, involving stakeholders in health education and literacy. 

 

Results

• improved capacities of the partner organisations to develop and deliver educational materials for all adults, with emphasis on including those with lower levels of literacy and/or education,
• improved capacities of the partner organisations to develop and deliver high-quality health learning curricula for adults in health education,
• health information on (in)fertility available in print and online in four Central-East European languages, adapted to the national context, with the possibility of scaling to other languages and contexts,
• improved capacities for managing, participating in and applying for EU project funding for all the participating organisations,
• subsequently, improved levels of health literacy with regard to (in)fertility among the target groups of adults, contributing to overall health literacy.

 

The Together for Fertility project is implemented with the support of the Agency for Mobility and EU Programs - AMPEU

 

Disclaimer: This communication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.