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The balanced counseling strategy plus : a toolkit for family planning service providers working in high HIV/STI prevalence settings

POPULATION COUNCIL
2011

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"This "is an interactive, client-friendly approach for improving counseling on family planning and prevention, detection, and treatment of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including HIV. The BCS+ was adapted from the Balanced Counseling Strategy, an evidence-based and well-researched tool for improving counseling on contraceptive methods. The BCS+ toolkit, developed and tested in Kenya and South Africa, provides the information and materials needed for health care facility providers to provide complete and high-quality family planning counseling to clients who live in areas with high rates of HIV and STIs.The BCS+ tools are generic and can be revised according to national and/or regional guidelines and different contexts
This second edition toolkit includes the following: * BCS+ Trainer’s Guide: Supervisors and others can use this to train health care facility directors and service providers on how to use the BCS+ for counseling family planning clients. * BCS+ User’s Guide: This guide focuses on how to implement the Balanced Counseling Strategy Plus. It can be distributed during training or used on its own with the BCS+ job aids. * BCS+ job aids comprising: - BCS+ algorithm that summarizes the 19 steps needed to implement the BCS+ during a family planning counseling session. These steps are organized into four stages: pre-choice, method choice, post-choice, and STI/HIV counseling. - BCS+ counseling cards that the provider uses during a counseling session. There are 26 counseling cards, the first of which contains six questions that the service provider asks to rule out the possibility a client is pregnant. Each of the next 16 cards contains information about a different family planning method. The next 3 cards provide advice on pregnancy and the postpartum period. The last 6 cards provide essential information for counseling on preventing, detecting, and treating STIs and HIV. - BCS+ method brochures on each of the 16 methods represented by the counseling cards. The brochures provide counseling to clients on the method they have chosen and then are given to clients for later reference. This means clients do not have to rely on their recollection of what was discussed with the provider. - WHO Medical Eligibility Criteria Wheel (offsite link) guides providers through medical conditions and medications that may be contraindications to use of particular contraceptive methods. The BCS+ tools are generic and can be revised according to national and/or regional guidelines and different contexts"
A video describing use of the BCS+ toolkit in South Africa also is available. To obtain Microsoft Word versions of BCS+ files to modify or revise according to your local setting, please contact the publisher

A handbook for network support agents and other community workers supporting HIV prevention, care, support and treatment

March 2009

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This manual is intended to help network support agents and other community workers be more effective in disseminating standardised information about HIV and AIDS. It "...emphasises the importance of the acquisition of knowledge, skills and the right attitude needed to identify the psychosocial needs of people of people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS and address these needs by giving information, counselling and appropriate referrals. Knowledge of counselling and psychosocial care, is combined as much as possible with prevention activities such as adopting HIV basic care positive prevention and adherence to treatment"

Preventing HIV/AIDS among persons with disabilities : a handbook for policy makers, healthcare providers and care givers of people with disabilities

IVOM, Damian O
2009

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This handbook highlights the factors responsible for the spread of HIV, methods of preventing it within persons with disabilities and how they can be reached and integrated into HIV and AIDS programmes and activities, so as to cause a reduction within its communities and in the general population. It is premised on the fact that many programmes and activities on HIV and AIDS in developing countries especially Sub-Saharan Africa have not realised the need to include persons with disabilities

Women, harm reduction, and HIV

PINKHAM, Sophie
MALINOWSKA-SEMPRUCH, Kasia
September 2007

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This report looks at factors that reduce women drug users’ access to health care including punitive policies, discrimination by police and health care providers, the intense social stigma attached to drug use by women, a preponderance of harm reduction and drug treatment programmes directed primarily toward men, an absence of sexual and reproductive health services for drug users, and poor access to effective outpatient drug treatment. Pregnant drug users are particularly vulnerable. In too many instances, they receive little or no accurate information about drug use during pregnancy or prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. In some countries pregnant drug users are rejected by health care providers, threatened with criminal penalties or loss of parental rights, or coerced into having an abortion or abandoning their newborns to the state. Poor access to medication-assisted treatment jeopardises the pregnancies of opiate-dependent drug users. It includes recommendations for consideration when designing services for women drug users and also examines issues around policies to protect women's health

Women and HIV : questions answered

RICHEY, Catherine
SHETTY, Vidya
August 2007

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Questions and answers are grouped into 4 sections: basic facts about HIV; family planning and HIV; health of mother and infant; and mother-to-child transmission of HIV

Uganda demographic health survey 2006

UGANDA BUREAU OF STATISTICS (UBOS)
MACRO INTERNATIONAL INC
August 2007

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The 2006 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS) is a nationally representative survey of 8,531 women age 15-49 years and 2,503 men age 15-54 years and is the first such survey to cover the entire country. The primary purpose of the UDHS is to furnish policymakers and planners with detailed information on fertility; family planning; infant, child, adult, and maternal mortality; maternal and child health; nutrition; and knowledge of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections. In addition, in one in three households selected for the survey, women age 15-49, men age 15-54, and children under age 5 years were weighed and their height was measured to assess their nutritional status. Women, men, and children age 6-59 months, in this subset of households were also tested for anemia, and in addition the women and children were tested for vitamin A deficiency. In addition to the main report, the key findings, a preliminary report, a wall chart and fact sheet are also available online

17 fact sheets on gender-related aspects of HIV/AIDS | Resource pack on gender and HIV/AIDS

UNAIDS Inter-Agency Task Team on Gender and HIV/AIDS
2005

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These fact sheets aim to provide policy makers with concise information about gender related aspects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. They deal with core facts and issues in thematic areas and are underpinned by an analysis which clarifies how gender issues are fuelling the crisis. Each theme presents a self-contained set of issues and recommendations and many of the themes are interlinked. All of them are connected by a concern to promote a gender-enlightened and comprehensive response to HIV/AIDS and its impacts

National household HIV prevalence and risk survey of South African children

BROOKS, Heather
SHISANA, Olive
RICHTER, Linda
2004

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This valuable new report looks at the levels of infection of HIV and AIDS, the levels of orphaning and child headed households, sexual debut and sexual experiences and risk factors and risk environments for children aged 2-14 in South Africa. This has been investigated as the HSRC recognizes that there is very little known about HIV prevalence rates among children or about the risk factors that predispose them to becoming infected. The study looks at the social and community risk factors that predispose children to HIV infection as well as the impact of the epidemic on children in terms of orphan status and child headed households. It examines children’s knowledge of HIV and AIDS prevention, their knowledge about sexual behaviour and HIV as well as their own patterns of sexual behaviour and changes in that behaviour. This study is interesting as it explicitly includes young children

Sexual behaviour in a fishing community on Lake Victoria, Uganda

PICKERING, H
et al
April 1997

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This study describes the sexual behaviour of men and women in a fishing village on the shores of Lake Victoria in South West Uganda. The village is near a well known trading town truck stop on the main trans Africa highway with a high recorded prevalence of HIV infection. These data show a very high rate of sexual mixing within the village but little contact with people from outside. This suggests that all sexually active men and women in the village are at high risk of STDs including HIV. There is currently no formal health care available in the village. Such communities should be targeted in future STD control programmes

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