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LINKAGES Enhanced Peer Outreach Approach (EPOA) Implementation Guide and Training Curriculum

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This implementation guide and training curriculum are designed to help organisations implement the enhanced peer outreach approach (EPOA), an approach being piloted by the LINKAGES Project to address the challenge of expanding outreach to key population (KPs) - sex workers, men who have sex with men, transgender people, and people who inject drugs - who are harder to reach and who may be at high risk of HIV, or more likely to be HIV positive.

The goal of the Linkages Across the Continuum of HIV Services for Key Populations Affected by HIV (LINKAGES) Project and this approach is to increase HIV testing yield, link HIV-positive KP members with treatment and care, and connect HIV-negative KP members with services that will help them remain HIV negative. The EPOA is led by peer outreach workers, who engage KP members to persuade peers in their own social and sexual networks to be tested for HIV. It focuses on those who are not found at traditional hot spots, which is particularly important because technology changes the ways that some KP members contact and meet sexual partners.

EPOA complements other community-led approaches to support KP members such as peer outreach and peer navigation and was developed by the United States Agency of International Development (USAID) and FHI 360. It is currently being piloted by LINKAGES partners in several countries in Asia, Africa, and the Eastern Caribbean.

The implementation guide describes the approaches' potential benefits, the essential components of the EPOA, and the steps involved in implementing it, including potential challenges. It includes a checklist for preparing to implement the EPOA, and the annexes include examples of programme tools and forms.

The training curriculum complements the guide by offering a detailed curriculum for training peer outreach workers to implement the EPOA. The training curriculum is accompanied by a set of training tools, handouts, and PowerPoint presentations (all available at a link provided in the document).

Click here to download the "LINKAGES Enhanced Peer Outreach Approach Implementation Guide" in PDF format.

Click here to download the Enhanced Peer Outreach Approach (EPOA) Training Curriculum for Peer Outreach Workers in PDF format.

Publication Date
Languages

English

Source

FHI360 website and Community Action and Leadership Collaborative (CLAC) website on August 29 2017.

Comments

Submitted by FayJG on Thu, 02/01/2018 - 12:59 Permalink

This is an effective strategy at reaching young, by engaing their peers to engage them. This helps for saturation of the young population with useful information about HIV and other STIs, and information on how one can stay safe and protected. With this approach, young people are more open to receiving information and counselling from their peers, as it might be relatable.