CORE Peer MENTOR TrainiNg
About Peer Mentoring
Developing the skills to use our lived experience of HIV to support others is profoundly enriching and transforms the way we, and others, live with HIV.
For many of us, becoming a peer mentor has helped us to overcome internalised stigma and give back to our communities.
Our peer mentoring training supports volunteers to develop the skills and knowledge to mentor others in a safe and effective way, as detailed in the National Standards of Peer Support.
During Our Peer Mentor Training You Will Develop Key Skills:
- How to share factual information around HIV & HIV treatment
- How to support people around sharing their HIV status with partners/family/friends
- Supporting people around other issues, including: ageing, comorbidities, menopause, and more
- Managing a mentoring relationship
- Solution focused approaches
- Active listening skills
- Boundaries
- Confidentiality
- Safeguarding
Additional Resources
At Positively UK, we are accredited training providers with the Open College Network and have trained over 800 peer mentors through our national training programme, Project 100. Many of our partnering organisations across the UK have now employed people living with HIV in key service delivery roles, as a result of partnering with us and receiving training through Project 100.
Positively UK is building on the legacy of Project 100 by strengthening existing partnerships and learning opportunities with voluntary and clinical services across the UK, as well as working with HIV support organisations in other countries to support the dissemination of our training programme. We are equally committed to expanding our reach and developing new partnerships with other health and care organisations to support the development and delivery of peer support within their own services.
Our commitment to providing training and development opportunities for our own volunteers has led to the delivery of in-house training and the development of a toolkit of resources relating to group facilitation, dealing with anxiety, sleeping problems and drug and alcohol use.
At Positively UK we are able to provide individually tailored training support and resources for interested partners – contact info@positivelyuk.org for further information.
training and support for hiv activists
CATWALK4POWER
We started the Catwalk4Power project because we wanted to create ‘actions‘ to address the silence surrounding women living with HIV. Our toolkit has stategies and workshops on how to mobilise women with HIV through creativity and develop leadership skills. We call the steps to organise a Catwalk4Power ‘Struts’; these can be adapted to the circumstances of any group of women willing to break HIV stigma and creating a platforms for women’s voices to be heard.
As part of the Women’s R.I.S.E project, Positively UK will coordinate Catwalk4Power events around the country over the next five years, starting in October 2023 in Manchester.
C.H.A.N.G.E. (Community HIV Activists Network to Grow Empowerment) is a programme that aims to foster inclusivity and advance justice and equality by empowering people living with HIV.
The C.H.A.N.G.E training programme supports the dissemination of the Manifesto of People Living with HIV, and uses the Changing Perceptions Activists toolkit to cover key areas, such as:
- Why we need activism
- A step-by-step guide to getting started
- Tips on how to burn bright but not burn out
- Understanding HIV-related organisations and networks for information and connections.
Led by Positively UK, this programme will include partners from Manchester, Bristol and Edinburgh.
Addressing internalised stigma
As part of the Fast-Track Cities-funded Empowerment Programme, we recently trained three cohorts of people living with HIV registered at the Alexander Pringle Centre (North Middlesex Hospital) and Jonathan Mann Clinic (Homerton University Hospital). Participants were provided with opportunities to understand and share their own experiences, creating awareness of diverse forms of intersecting stigma and providing a space to develop mutual understanding and respect.
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HIV Confident Charter Mark
We are partnering with National Aids Trust, National Aids Map and Fast-Track Cities to create a bespoke HIV Confident Charter Mark .
Our ambitions here are to:
- Increase knowledge about HIV and improve attitudes towards people living with HIV,
- tackle stigma and discrimination within organisations and cities, and
- provide people living with HIV a way to report stigma and discrimination they experience in an organisation.
Organisations participating in the new charter mark programme will work towards an accredited status and become more inclusive, safe spaces, for people living with HIV.
NATIONAL PEER MENTORING EVALUATION
Abstract of Project 100 evaluation, presenting the impact of our national peer mentoring programme and its benefits for the health and wellbeing of peer mentors and mentees. Presented at the first virtual International AIDS Conference – AIDS 2020.
Download the pdf presentation here