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The snowball effect: Training the people who train peers who serve clients

In May 2009, the PEER Center and Peer Education and Training Sites held the first national training of trainers (TOT) workshop in Nashville. The purpose of this workshop was to equip individuals to train HIV-positive peers to work or volunteer with organizations that serve people living with HIV. Following the Nashville TOT training, 18 participants applied what they learned to conduct peer trainings within their communities, resulting in 81 new peers being trained. A number of these peers are now working or volunteering in their communities.

51 participants representing 28 organizations have committed to conducting a peer training within their communities within 3 months of this training, keeping the momentum going by training dozens of new peers to support people living with HIV.

Since then, the Peer Education Training Sites have also completed TOT trainings in their local communities. People to People in Missouri conducted a three-day training followed by a capacity-building session in July 2009, and a total of 17 participants, including working peer educators, were trained to conduct future peer trainings within their organizations. The Lotus Project in California completed a training in September 2009 with their partner organizations, resulting in 17 peers being trained as trainers. The PACT Project in New York conducted a workshop in Connecticut in November where 17 new trainers were prepared. All 51 participants in these workshops, representing 28 organizations (see the list below) have committed to conducting a peer training within their communities within 3 months of this training, keeping the momentum going by training dozens of new peers to support people living with HIV.

The trainings are based on the Building Blocks to Peer Success training-of-trainers toolkit for training peers to support people living with HIV/AIDS.

Participating organizations

People to People training:

  • Family Planning Center, Circle of Love, Philadelphia, PA
  • Good Samaritan Project, Kansas City, MO
  • Heart of Illinois, HIV/AIDS Center, Peoria, IL
  • Madison County AIDS Project, Granite City, IL
  • Metropolitan Interdenominational Church First Response Center, Nashville TN
  • Project ARK of Washington University, St. Louis, MO
  • Save Inc., Kansas City, MO
  • St. Louis Effort for AIDS, St. Louis, MO
  • Truman Medical Center, Kansas City, MO

Lotus training:

  • BABES Network-YWCA, Seattle, WA
  • The Center: The San Diego LGBT Community Center, San Diego, CA
  • Christie's Place, San Diego, CA
  • The Empowerment Project, Denver, CO
  • LAC+USC Maternal Child & Adolescent Center, Los Angeles, CA
  • Mujeres Unidas Contra El SIDA, San Antonio, TX
  • SisterLove, Inc., Atlanta, GA
  • Women Rising Project (AIDS Services of Austin), Austin, TX

PACT training:

  • AIDS Project New Haven, New Haven, CT
  • CAMBA, Brooklyn, NY
  • Central Area Health Education Center, Inc., Hartford, CT
  • Consumers / Members of Connecticut HIV Planning Consortium, Hartford, CT
  • Connecticut AIDS Resource Coalition (CARC), Hartford, CT
  • FACES Network at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY
  • Greater Bridgeport Adolescent Pregnancy Program, Inc., Bridgeport, CT
  • Latino Community Services Center, Hartford, CT
  • State of Connecticut Department of Public Health, Public Health Initiatives Branch, HCSS / Prevention Unit, Hartford, CT
  • The Albany Damien Center Inc., Albany, NY
  • Waterbury Hospital Infectious Diseases Clinic, Waterbury , CT