Geney KL, Lewis SY, Henderson R, Castillo S; International Conference on AIDS.
Int Conf AIDS. 1996 Jul 7-12; 11: 394 (abstract no. Th.D.4915).
National Pediatric and Family HIV Resource Center, Washington, DC, USA.
Issue: Youth-service providers need to incorporate HIV messages into their work with youth. Project: A three-day intensive skills-building workshop entitled "Youth and HIV Antibody Testing: Building Skills for Risk Assessment." HIV risk reduction and prevention strategies for youth must be tailored to the developmentally unique needs of young people. While this workshop was designed to teach clinicians how to provide HIV pre- and post-test counseling to adolescents, these clinicians also learn about issues facing youth and consequently become more sensitive to these issues. The trainers work with a local advisory group (LAG) to tailor the training to the specific needs of the local adolescent community. Local guest speakers are utilized as well as panel comprised of HIV-positive youth. The youth panel discusses their HIV counseling and testing experiences and what they look for in a youth-service agency. Extensive planning is done to ensure that the appropriate providers attend the training. Providers may not believe they need to know information about HIV if they are not providing HIV-related services. An important role for the LAG, therefore, is to do outreach in the community to youth-service agencies and educate the agencies on why this training is important to providers. Results: To date, this training has been offered three times. Even providers who felt they had a very good grasp of issues facing youth and HIV counseling and testing issues said they learned a great deal in terms of providing information to youth. Lessons Learned: It is crucial to educate youth-service providers on HIV counseling and testing issues since they are often the first people youth seek out for this information. Many youth-service providers initially think they do not need to know this information if they are not offering HIV-antibody testing services at their agency so careful planning and outreach is crucial to the success of the training.
Publication Types:
Keywords:
- Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
- Adolescent
- Adolescent Health Services
- Counseling
- HIV Infections
- HIV Seropositivity
- Health Planning
- Humans
- Mass Screening
- Research Design
- Risk Assessment
- psychology
Other ID:
UI: 102221100
From Meeting Abstracts