Children, Adolescents & HIV - A Simple Toolkit for Community Health Workers and Peer Supporters

This toolkit has been developed for use by community health workers (CHWs) working with children and adolescents living with HIV throughout sub-Saharan Africa. It is designed as a simple self-study learning guide with concrete examples to help CHWs to be as effective as possible in their work.

As explained in the guide, “[C]hildren and adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) have poor access to quality care, and the severe shortage of healthcare workers is one of the major barriers. Overburdened health teams are unable to offer the child- and adolescent-friendly services and psychosocial support that are needed to realise integrated and comprehensive care.” CHWs can play an important role in supporting the health, care, and wellbeing of children and adolescents living with HIV and their families. Depending on the setting, CHWs are referred to by different names, such as peer supporters (PSs), expert patients (EPs), peer educators, patient advocates, accompagnateurs, or other titles. For example, EPs are people living with or affected by HIV themselves, so they are experts in what it means to deal with HIV treatment and care; PSs are youth and adolescents who themselves are living with HIV, making them ideally placed to support other young people facing the same challenges. All types of CHWs can work within the clinic or out in the community, wherever there is a need for their help.

The guide is the result of the work of Paediatric Aids Treatment for Africa (PATA) and the One to One Children’s Fund. PATA works to ensure that children and adolescents living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa have access to comprehensive, high-quality health services, including antiretroviral treatment (ART). One to One Children's Fund is a United Kingdom (UK)-based charity that works with vulnerable and traumatised children, helping to rebuild the lives of those affected by disease, trauma, and disability.

The toolkit is divided into five sections:

Section 1 - Effective CHWs and PSs: Information to help CHWs to communicate well with different patient groups and the wider community, and to make positive choices, draw boundaries, and relieve stress.

Section 2 - Understanding HIV & AIDS: Information on what HIV is, how it is transmitted, how it can be prevented, its progression, with specific information on each of the four target patient groups: pregnant and breastfeeding women, infants and children, adolescents, and caregivers.

Section 3 - Treatment and Care: Information to help you to provide adherence counselling, basic triage in clinics, tracking and tracing of those defaulting treatment, and nutritional and educational support.

Section 4 - Psychosocial Support: Information to help CHWs to lead support groups, encourage and support disclosure, promote positive living, and educate caregivers on effective childcare strategies.

Section 5 - Community Outreach & Referrals: Information to help CHWs provide health education, promote health services, combat stigma and discrimination, and undertake advocacy, as well as ways for CHWs to map existing resources in their community and link patients to those resources.

Sections include: practical tools and techniques to use in a particular setting, questions and exercises to test knowledge and understanding, and links to further resources that may provide additional or more in-depth coverage of a specific topic.