Association of Nurses in AIDS Care Conference
Sally Neville, Director, HIV Primary Care, at Kansas City Free Health Clinic will make a presentation at the upcoming Association of Nurses in AIDS Care conference in Tucson, AZ Nov 6-9. Her presentation is entitled Peer Education Training Sites: A Resource for Nurses Working with HIV+ Peers.
The Kansas City Free Health Clinic lends its experience with peers in HIV care to the People to People program, one of three national peer education and capacity-building centers through which the PEER Center provides expertise in implementing peer programs.
Presentation Abstract
Background
Nurses utilize myriad strategies to promote self management among Persons Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWH). Peers (PLWH) have been used in this capacity since the beginning of the epidemic. As engagement in care and adherence to treatment become more critical to successful self management, the use of peers has become both more essential and more problematic. Nurses are often the professional managing peers in a treatment setting and are faced with issues related to training, supervision, integration into multidisciplinary teams, outcome measurement and infrastructure.
Purpose
This presentation will discuss a Health Resources Services Administration, HIV/AIDS Bureau, Minority AIDS Initiative project: Peer Education Training Sites. The purpose of this project is to develop peer education training curricula and organizational capacity-building tools to expand or enhance the use of peers in promoting engagement in care and adherence to treatment. This presentation will focus on resources which have been developed by this project that nurses may use as they develop, implement, manage or evaluate peer programs.
Methods/practice
In 2005 the HIV/AIDS Bureau funded 3 sites and a coordinating center to participate in the Minority AIDS Initiative- funded project, Peer Education Training Sites. These sites developed peer training curricula, trained peers and worked with agencies implementing or enhancing peer programs. Together with the coordinating center, national train-the-trainer peer training and organizational capacity-building resources have been developed. Cross-site evaluation data related to peers, trainings and organizations will be presented.
Conclusions
National resources to assist nurses in implementing or enhancing peer support programs are available and can be used in a variety of settings. These resources address training needs, peer roles, supervision, management, organizational infrastructure and evaluation of peer programs.
Implications for practice
Peer support programs can be an important and successful tool for promoting self management among PLWH’s. Nurses may use these nationally developed resources to assist them in designing, implementing and evaluating peer programs in their agencies.