Facilitator Guide - EngenderHealth

ABOUT THE COUNSELORS CURRICULUMAdherence to Treatment for HIV – A Training Curriculum for Counselors has beendeveloped for training people who handle HIV/AIDS counseling and build their capacity toreachout to their clients with information on living healthy with HIV, with a special focus onantiretroviral therapy (ART), adherence to ART, positive living and prevention among HIVpositive people. ‘HIV Treatment Education and Couseling’ empowers people living with HIV/AIDS by making them understand the role of ART in leading a healthy life so they canadhere successfully to their ART regimen and followup visits to clinic and laboratory. Thisprevents development of resistance by HIV virus against ART and ensures success ofantiretroviral therapy both for the individual and for the national ART roll out program.Written in a simple, non-technical language, this curriculum can be used with people in atraining setting of groups of 15-25 participants. The training curriculum has been designedin such a way so as to provide ample opportunities for participants to interact in a supportiveenvironment through a variety of exercises and activities. The curriculum can be used as awhole or in parts, but for sake of completeness and to ensure quality of training, it is crucialthat all the sessions be covered adequately and the suggested duration for each session beadhered to.The Counselor’s curriculum consists of a ‘Facilitator Guide’ and a ‘Participant Manual’.The facilitator’s should refer to both the Facilitator’s Guide and the Participant’s Manual. Acopy of the Participant’s Manual should be given to participants in the training.The Facilitator Guide consists of:• Trainer’s Notes: provides instructions for the facilitator on how to conduct the sessions.• Trainer’s Resources: provides important technical information that the trainer will needto refer to before or during sessionsThe Participant Manual consists of:• Handouts: contain important technical information for the participants to use as theyparticipate in the sessions and also for them to refer to later.• Participant’s Resources: contains important information about the topics that are coveredin the training program.The facilitator should inform the participants on the first day, that they would need to referto the manual when asked to do so. Facilitators must emphasize to the participants thatmost activities require that participants, while answering questions posed by the facilitator,speak from their personal experiences. This makes the interaction and discussion lively andensures learning of new facts.1