Community-based Therapeutic Care (CTC) was developed by Valid International to improve the coverage and impact of selective feeding programmes for the treatment of acute malnutrition. Its central innovation is to provide therapeutic feeding in the home. By providing easy access and reducing the opportunity costs associated with enrolment in a therapeutic feeding programme, the CTC/CMAM model increases the coverage and impact of humanitarian feeding interventions.
Until recently, therapeutic feeding centres, that require long inpatient stays, have been the only accepted mode of treatment for severe acute malnutrition. CTC/CMAM programmes treat the majority of these cases at home and aim to restrict inpatient care to only those suffering from acute malnutrition with medical complications. They use decentralised networks of outpatient treatment sites to provide a take-home food ration known as Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) along with routine medicines.
With the support of Concern Worldwide and other implementing partners, Valid is now focused on exploring and developing the capacity of the CTC/CMAM approach in other contexts. Current work includes the development of CTC/CMAM interventions for use in non-emergency contexts, addressing the nutritional needs of people living with HIV/AIDS, expanding local Ready-to-Use Food (RUF) production and developing approaches for addressing chronic malnutrition.
