MOPDD01 Winning the Generation: Family Centered Approaches to Prevention, Treatment, Care

Some interventions take a family centered approach to the prevention, treatment, and care of individuals with HIV, particularly in regards to preventing new HIV infections among the young people. It is often implemented by giving parents resources to talk to their children about sensitive issues like safe sex. Even though many of the studies described in the session are from different parts of the world, being a parent and talking to your children about sex is a universally uncomfortable and often avoided situation. These programs looked to study how the link between training or support for parents increased their effectiveness when talking about safe sex with their children.

A pilot study in South Africa took a US based program called Let’s Talk and adapted it to be more culturally relevant and focused on HIV prevention. The goal of the program is to improve parent and child communication and coach them on how to talk about safe sex. The program was implemented in a pre-existing worksite HIV prevention program and the follow up rate was very high. Although the training is intended for pre-adolescent children because it is easier for the cross gender conversation on sexually issues, programs could be expanded in the future for a wider range of ages.

MAMMA+ is a comprehensive service for HIV positive mothers and children, which linked all of the places women receive care to create a unified support network. This resulted comprehensive support led to a drop in HIV positive mothers abandoning their children.

Two other studies in Thailand observed the relationship between family and parental values on sexual activity of young women and showed that they internalized parental expectations and this was related to an increase in theoverall mental health in the family. Both studies concluded that HIV prevention training and health advisement of the parents could “trickle down” to their children.