Guide to Implementing TAP (Teens for AIDS Prevention)
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Guide to Implementing TAP (Teens for AIDS Prevention) A Peer Education Program to Prevent HIV and STI 2nd Edition Advocates for Youth Guide to Implementing TAP (Teens for AIDS Prevention) A Peer Education Program to Prevent HIV and STI 2nd Edition written through a Youth/Adult Partnership – Megan Renfrew, Intern, with Kate Fothergill, M.P.H. Debra Hauser, M.P.H. Kayla Jackson, M.P.A. Kent Klindera, M.P.H. Jennifer Hincks-Reynolds, M.P.H. edited by Sue Alford and Ammie N. Feijoo Advocates for Youth Washington, DC 2002 © 2002, Advocates for Youth James Wagoner, President 1025 Vermont Avenue NW, Suite 200 Washington, DC 20005 www.advocatesforyouth.org Phone: 202.347.5700 Fax: 202.347.2263 E-mail: [email protected] Advocates for Youth – helping young people make safe and responsible decisions about sex. Advocates for Youth is dedicated to creating programs and advocating for policies that help young people make informed and responsible decisions about their sexual and reproductive health. Advocates provides information, training, and strategic assistance to youth-serving organizations, youth activists, policy makers, and the media in the United States and the developing world. Acknowledgments The first edition of this manual, A Guide to Implementing TAP (Teens for AIDS Prevention), was developed and written in 1988 for Advocates for Youth by Patricia Dietz with assistance from Geri Peak and Nancy Stella of Advocates’ staff. The original program pilot-tested between 1988 and 1990 at six sites with the generous support of AETNA Life and Casualty Foundation, April Trust, The AT&T Foundation, Freed Foundation, Glen Eagles Foundation, Metropolitan Washington Community AIDS Partnership, and the Public Welfare Foundation. The MF Foundation generously supported the pilot testing of this second edition which is a product of the cooperative work of many members of Advocates’ staff. The authors especially want to thank L. Michael Gipson, Jane Norman, Sarita Edwards, and Quanitta Favorite for their time and assis- tance. Design by: Kensington Heights Design ISBN: 0-913843-32-6 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Table of Contents Introduction: How to Use This Guide . .v Chapter I. The Need for HIV/STI Prevention Peer Education . .1 Chapter II. Building Support for a Peer Education Program . .7 Chapter III. Planning the Program and Finding Funding . .17 Chapter IV. Selecting and Training Staff and Recruiting TAP Members . .29 Chapter V. Training Youth to Be Peer Educators . .47 Chapter VI. Youth Developing Activities to Educate Their Peers . .143 Chapter VII. Evaluating the Peer Education Program . .163 Chapter VIII. Taking the Message to the Media . .171 Appendix. Resources . .179 Useful Forms . .x Sample Permission Slip . .185 TAP Evaluation Survey: Pretest . .186 TAP Contract . .188 Permission Slip . .189 TAP Evaluation Survey: Post-test . .190 Activity Planning Sheet . .193 Field Notes . .194 TAP Evaluation Survey: Pretest/Post-test Answers . .195 Consent to Use Photograph . .197 A Peer Education Program to Prevent HIV and STI >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> iii >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Introduction Introduction: How to Use This Guide his is a step by step guide to implementing Chapter III. Planning the Program and Finding HIV/STI prevention peer education programs Funding – Focuses on comprehensive planning – Tin schools, faith communities, AIDS service from assessing needs and assets to specifying goals organizations, and/or community-based organizations. and objectives to planning the training of TAP members. The guide can assist planners to develop a program The chapter also includes information on budgeting tailored to any of many specific settings. Although and finding funding. each school, community, or agency may differ in structure, this manual identifies and covers the key Chapter IV. Selecting and Training Staff and components essential to creating a successful HIV/STI Recruiting TAP Members – Focuses on important prevention peer education program. A single program qualities to look for in recruiting staff and provides coordinator may plan the program. Better yet, staff guidelines for recruiting youth. and youth may collaborate in planning a program that meets the specific needs of that community’s youth. Chapter V. Training Youth to Be Peer Educators – In general, the sections of this guide accommodate Outlines 12 sessions, amounting to about 22 hours of varying needs and will guide the planners from activities that will provide information and skills beginning to end in implementing a program in relating to HIV/STI prevention. schools, agencies, or communities. Chapter VI. Youth Developing Activities to Educate Chapter I. The Need for HIV/STI Prevention Peer Their Peers – Describes some educational efforts that Education – Reviews youth’s need for HIV/STI pre- peer educators can design and implement and vention education and summarizes research findings on suggests approaches to supporting their efforts. the effectiveness of peer education as a means to ful- fill that need. Chapter VII. Evaluating the Peer Education Program – Provides guidelines for assessing the success of the Chapter II. Building Support for a Peer Education TAP program and a sample evaluation instrument. Program – Highlights the importance of laying the groundwork for an HIV/STI prevention peer education Chapter VIII. Taking the Message to the Media – program in a school or community. Laying the Provides basic guidelines on how to interact with the groundwork means presenting the program to influential media. groups in the community, such as the sponsoring agency’s board of directors, the local school board, Appendix – Provides resource organizations and the parent/teacher association (PTA), directors and/or web sites for more information. For the convenience principals, and affected or involved staff. To help the of the program coordinators, all forms contained in coordinator become an advocate for the program, this this volume – such as permission slips, tests, and data chapter outlines nine reasons why teens need education gathering forms – are duplicated in the appendix. to prevent HIV and STI and why peer education fills that need. The chapter also presents convincing arguments to counter possible opposition to the program. A Peer Education Program to Prevent HIV and STI >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> v >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>The Need for HIV/STI Prevention Peer Education Chapter I. The Need for HIV/STI Prevention Peer Education cquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and syphilis, create open sores and may put infected is widespread in the United States and affects people at higher risk for HIV infection. Aall sectors of society. By the end of the 20th Many behaviors put teenagers at risk of HIV/STI. century, well over one million people in the United Many teens are sexually active and a large percentage States had fallen into one of the three following cate- of sexually active teens fail to use condoms consistently gories. These people were: and correctly.3 Teens have high rates of STI. In fact ● Infected with human immunodeficiency virus among American females, teens normally have the (HIV) – the virus that causes AIDS highest incidence of reported STI. Among males, teens ● Living with AIDS have STI rates second only to males ages 20 to 24.4 ● Dead from AIDS or AIDS-related illnesses.1 Asmall minority of teens inject drugs, but teens commonly report using alcohol and/or non-injection drugs which Adolescents account for only a small percentage of can inhibit their judgment.5 In fact, drug and alcohol use 1 reported AIDS cases. However, public health profes- is among a cluster of risk behaviors, including unpro- sionals believe that teenagers are at high risk for tected sexual intercourse, that teens frequently report.6 infection with HIV. Over the last few years the annual number of new HIV infections has risen among The association between disadvantage on the one youth. Furthermore, because of HIV’s long incubation hand and HIV infection on the other is evident from period, most people who have been diagnosed with the statistics. For example, in the United States, more than AIDS while in their twenties – about 17 percent of all 50 percent of all adolescent AIDS cases occur among AIDS cases –may have been infected with HIV when female teens, and the overwhelming majority of these they were teenagers. cases occur among African Americans and Latinas.1 Youth are at risk for HIV infection, and youth of HIV infection has no symptoms and represents a color, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, are covert threat to anyone of any age. However, the ten- at disproportionate risk of HIV infection. year incubation period makes HIV’s invisibility a particularly serious danger for adolescents. Teens For current information on the incidence of sexual characteristically focus principally on themselves and intercourse, condom use, and sexual risk behaviors their peers. When they look around, these youth do among youth, contact the following organizations: not see outward signs of HIV infection among their ● Advocates for Youth – www.advocatesforyouth.org peers. Nor, for the most part, are their peers sick due to AIDS. Consequently, for many teens, HIV is a danger ● CDC National STD & AIDS Hotlines (operated under that is easily ignored or dismissed because it is invisible. contract by the American Social Health Association) – 1.800.342.2437 or 1.800.227.8922 (English, 24 hours