The UWI Caribbean HIV/AIDS Regional Training (CHART) network Regional Coordinating Unit will host a regional Training of Trainers Workshop for persons which will provide training to Health Care workers providing psychosocial support on February 14th for People Living with HIV (PLHIV) at the Coco Palm Resort in St. Lucia.
A total of twenty-nine participants representing, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, The Bahamas, Suriname and Dominica are expected to participate in the workshop.
Trainers will be trained by utilizing the “Train Up to Teach back” methodology which, through a practical and hands on approach, will equip participants with the skills to effectively deliver training.
Health care workers surveyed in 2009 identified the area of psychosocial support for persons infected with and affected by HIV as critical. In addition, in a qualitative study conducted in Jamaica, Barbados and Haiti, focus groups also revealed that psychosocial support was requested by PLHIV.
In this study, group members also voiced a desire that the health system should provide care to not just their bodies but also to their minds and souls. In response to these needs a regional training programme , “Providing Psychosocial Support for People Living with HIV (PLHIV)” was developed and piloted by UWI.
The Regional Coordinating Unit (RCU) of the Caribbean HIV/AIDs Regional Training (CHART) Initiative was established in the Department of Community Health & Psychiatry on the Mona Campus in 2003 under the direction of Professor Brendan Bain, who was the lead coordinator of the University of the West Indies HIV/AIDS Response Programme (UWI HARP) at the time.
The unit serves as the coordinating point for a network of training centres that provide training for several categories of health care workers who deliver HIV and tuberculosis prevention, care and treatment in the CARICOM Caribbean. The main business of the CHART Network has been to provide continuing education for health professional and community-based workers for prevention, care and treatment of HIV and AIDS. (PR PANCAP)
