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Peer Educator Training Sites (PETS)

Peer Educator Training Sites (PETS) is a three-year HRSA-funded project under the Minority AIDS Initiative, begun in October 2002 with the goal of training peer educators to work with people infected by or at high risk for HIV through outreach, education, and advocacy services. The PETS projects expand the number of peer educators who are trained as educators/leaders, and implement a training curriculum designed to bring more people at-risk for or living with HIV into testing, counseling, and care. PETS are designed to complement the work of the AIDS Education and Training Centers and the National AIDS Minority Education and Training Center initiatives.

PETS grantees work in partnership with affiliated community-based organizations (CBOs), providing them with technical assistance to build their organizational capacity to utilize peer educators. Together they identify, train, and supervise peer educators to provide critical information on HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and support services to people of color and hard-to-reach populations. The PETS grantees are: The AIDS Foundation, Houston, Inc. (TX), Circulo de la Hispanidad, Inc. (NY), Duke University Medical Center (NC), and the Shanti California Peer Educator Project (CA).

In June 2003 Health Watch Information and Promotion Service, the Resource and Evaluation Center for PETS, subcontracted with the Health and Disability Working Group to design and conduct the multi-site evaluation of the PETS program. The multi-site evaluation will measure whether PETS have met HRSA’s objectives:

• To enhance knowledge, skills and practices of the peer educators; to measure changes in behavior and attitudes.
• To improve the care-seeking practices and adherence to treatment of consumers living with HIV/AIDS; to increase the testing and counseling services for consumers at risk of HIV/AIDS.
• To increase the CBOs’ organizational capacity to deliver services; to put systems in place for future self-monitoring.

Working together with Health Watch and the participating PETS grantees, HDWG developed key study questions for the multi-site evaluation, as well as the multi-site survey instruments and protocols to answer these questions.

Project Staff: Carol Tobias, Serena Rajabiun, Rowland Yancey, Steve Finch.