HIV Prevention

Participatory Learning and Knowledge Exchange To Improve Service Delivery for Paediatric HIV Treatment and Support

Started by Rebecca Norman on 07 Sep 2010

Paediatric AIDS Treatment for Africa (PATA) is a grassroots regional network of 127 paediatric HIV/AIDS clinics across 23 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Our aim is to expand access and improve quality of care for children infected with HIV/AIDS and their families.
On 11-14 October, PATA will be holding an East Africa Regional Forum in Kampala, Uganda. 20 multidisciplinary treatment teams comprising of a doctor, nurse, counsellor and pharmacist will be attending from clinics and hospitals in Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda. The topics for this Forum are Advanced ART (fragile regimens, toxicity, etc), Adolescent Care and Disclosure to Children.
The goal of the Forum is to provide technical training and knowledge sharing among frontline multidisciplinary treatment teams. Knowledge is gained in several settings: Guest speakers, who are experts in their field, provide up-to-date knowledge and examples of best practice. The Forum also includes “Masterclasses” delivered by recognised experts as additional technical input.
Each day’s plenary sessions are followed by participative, action-orientated inter and intra disciplinary workshops, where clinics use the new information as a lens to understand their own challenges and address the forum topics. The PATA affiliated teams then set clinic self-improvement goals for the upcoming year. During the year that follows the forum, teams complete their elected tasks with access to mentorship from the PATA faculty and affiliated experts
This model is a combination of didactic learning and a participatory action-oriented process. This means that the Forum is not just a “talk-shop.” Each participant (a member of a treatment team) is engaged and encouraged to share experience and express her/his opinion. They interact both as a member of a treatment team and in professional groups, allowing all team members an equal voice and to come forward with experiences, questions and concerns in the field of paediatric HIV/AIDS. On the last day, clinical teams give feedback on the Forum process as well as on what the topics of the next Forum should be, given their own knowledge of current challenges on the ground with paediatric HIV/AIDS.
After the Forum, treatment teams embark on their clinical-self improvement goals. They disseminate the information and models of best practice they have learned to the rest of their own clinic, as well as other affiliated clinics and community-based organisations. Teams report back to PATA after 6 months on the progress they have made and difficulties they have encountered in reaching their goals.
As we are a network, we are always interested in how other organisations and networks may use participatory action-oriented learning in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Whether it is in training, in the clinic or in the community, there are so many applications for this interactive methodology. Please let us know your experience!
In addition, for those that are interested in seeing this process first-hand, we do have a limited number of spots for participant observers to come to the PATA Forum. Please be in touch if you would like to register for the Forum, learn more about the Forum process or become affiliated as a clinic, organisation or institution. For more information on PATA visit www.teampata.org.

Keywords: best practice  Community engagement  Developing targeted interventions  HIV  Integration and linkages to care  Pediatric  Scaling up & managing at scale  sub-saharan africa