Partners in African Cleft Training (PACT): Evolution of a Partnership Supporting Sustainable Interdisciplinary Cleft Team Care in Sub-Saharan Africa

Partners in African Cleft Training (PACT) is a collaborative education program between cleft team providers from African countries and United States that focuses on interdisciplinary team care for children with orofacial clefting to improve outcomes and expand access to team care in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, we describe the evolution of a partnership, initiated by an African surgeon, to determine how to support sustainable cleft team care in Africa and share the impact of the PACT program on participating teams. This narrative review discusses 3 major steps in the evolution of the PACT program. The initial step was a pilot study to identify requirements for sustainable team care in Africa. This study concluded that the identification of challenges and solutions for cleft team care must come from within the African continent and that training centers focused on team cleft care should be established. This led to a 3-year program to establish regional cleft training centers for surgery, anesthesiology, and speech. The partnership evolved to include in-person workshops focused on interdisciplinary team care with the addition of new teams. The current PACT program includes team workshops, virtual curriculum, and seminars. Since 2011, there have been 15 workshops. All teams have increased in size and composition and 90% of participants reported a positive impact of workshop on patient care and strengthening teams. The impact of the PACT program has included the establishment of regional training programs and team building resulting in improved access to comprehensive cleft team care in sub-Saharan Africa.