The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief PMTCT/Pediatric Technical Working Group and the United States Agency for International Development’s Africa Bureau hosted a field-driven learning meeting for U.S. government staff and key African partners from February 7-10, 2012, in Gaborone, Botswana. The consultation was held in response to calls from practitioners, government officials, and programmers to share knowledge, experience, and resources on how to best care for the increasing numbers of perinatally infected children surviving to adolescence and adulthood. This group-emerging as a unique population and a unique challenge for policy makers, programmers, and service providers-requires greater attention and a stronger understanding of their unique needs to support continued health and development. The meeting highlighted programs in eight countries that are facing and responding to the needs of adolescents living with HIV and the gaps and opportunities in transitional services.  Participating countries included Botswana, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Specifically, the meeting aimed to:

• Provide a forum for country programs to share promising practices that address challenges in designing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating transitional services for perinatally infected adolescents living with HIV.
• Finalize the technical brief and transition toolkit currently under development.
• Explore methods of routine monitoring of transition services and policies and explore methods for evaluating these efforts.
• Identify three to five potential next steps for country programs to improve the quality of existing transitional services; these next steps may include participatory situation analysis, costed action plan development, proposals for implementation, further evaluation, South-to-South/cross-learning technical assistance, or other next steps not yet identified.
• Explore methods of routine monitoring of transition services and policies and explore methods for evaluating these efforts.

 

Download the Meeting Report (PDF 483 KB)

Presentations