Age-appropriate disclosure – lessons from a paediatric HIV exchange visit
Age-appropriate disclosure – lessons from a paediatric HIV exchange visit
Earlier this year Society for Family Health from Nigeria visited Zoë-Life in South Africa to learn from each other how to sustainably reach children with HIV care and support. In the light of this exchange journey both Aidsfonds’ paediatric partners had embarked on, it was time for the second stop: Nigeria.
27 health workers increased skills and knowledge
Through the Aidsfonds Linking & Learning Initiative, Zoë-life was invited by Society for Family Health and Nigeria Ministry of Health to provide a capacity building training on the KidzAlive psychosocial model of care for children living with HIV.
The interactive training focused on increasing knowledge and skills of healthcare workers delivering HIV services to children living with HIV and their families. Additionally, the training facilitated peer-to-peer knowledge and skills sharing among participants with existing expertise in the subject matter.
In total 27 healthcare workers were trained. Nokuthula Heath of Zoë-Life facilitated the training. “What an incredible group willing to enhance their skills and very enthusiastic on reaching 95-95-95 UNAIDS goals,” she says.
Amazing creativity
Aisha Dadi of Society for Family Health: “Aidsfonds’ linking and learning initiative is great innovation as we are able to reach and share knowledge with other organisations to strengthen our interventions. Feedback from the participants was very positive. A participant indicated the topic of age-appropriate disclosure most interesting and helpful.
Another participant says: “This is the best training I have ever attended. It was so interactive and very emotional. I must ensure that I make my consulting room a child-friendly space, especially the picture of the mood of the child was of a very amazing creativity.”
Piloting age-appropriate disclosure
This encouraging feedback led to the government saying to be ready to take the lead to ensure age-appropriate disclosure is piloted with possible adoption as a national programme. With Society for Family Health, UNICEF, and CHAI to fund the pilot activities.
“Society for Family Health will work with Zoë-Life to develop a baseline tool, share with the Federal Ministry of Health to share with the four pilot States Ministry of Health”, concludes Aisha Dadi.
Participants in the training
Participants in the training
First stop: South Africa
Last April, Society for Family Health visited South Africa to learn from Zoë-Life’s interventions. A blog regarding this exchange visit can be found here
The Aidsfonds linking & learning initiative
Aidsfonds has set up a paediatric HIV linking and learning initiative in which we:
- Connect our local partners in multiple countries to exchange best practices and share challenges and solutions
- Encourage partners to learn from each other to validate and further enhance community-based intervention models, adjusting the model to local contexts
- Jointly share lessons learned at national, regional and international levels to influence future programming, policies and funding of other organisations, donors and governments.
Read more about the Aidsfonds paediatric programming