Children affected by HIV and AIDS need tailored, age-specific support that matches their evolving needs as they grow from birth into adulthood.
For example, the first 1000 days of life are a particularly vital window of opportunity in which the right stimulation, nutrition, medicine, care and nurturing can enable an infant exposed to and/or living with HIV to survive and thrive across their lifetime. Attention should be paid to issues of disclosure, stigma, gender, education, stimulation and response care, including play.
Similarly, young children need a nurturing family environment, early education on HIV to combat stigma and prevent infection later on, as well as age-appropriate medical care for those already infected with HIV. Achieving this will require the HIV sector working together with other development sectors to design joined-up programs of support that evolve with children as they grow, in what development practitioners call a “life-cycle approach.”
Key Reading:
- Donor Policy Report: How much funding is going to children and adolescents, where, on what and what are the gaps?
- COVID-19 Policy Briefing: Prioritising Children, Adolescents and Caregivers Affected by HIV in the COVID-19 response.
- Adolescent mothers affected by HIV and their children – understanding and meeting their needs in our HIV response and global commitments, a background note outlining the current evidence on the experiences of this population.
- Tackle Exclusion: End AIDS in Children, an advocacy brief highlighting where the world must focus in order to end AIDS in children.
- In HIV & Early Childhood Development – New Frontiers, Coalition member, Linda Richter highlights key challenges in HIV-related child survival and early development.
- Several members of the Coalition contributed to a special issue of the journal, AIDS, focused entirely on early childhood development.
- Now more than ever! A need to reach the youngest children affected by HIV and AIDS was developed in order to help organizations integrate early childhood activities into their programming.
- Coalition members aimed to test the efficacy of an intervention to increase maternal HIV-disclosure to primary school-aged HIV-uninfected children.
- Bereavement increases children’s risk for psychological disorders, highlighting the need for effective interventions, especially in areas where orphanhood is common. This study looked at the effect of a bereavement support group on female adolescents’ psychological health.
- This research examines the effect of a conditional cash transfer on HIV incidence among young women in rural South Africa.
- HIV treatment and care services for adolescents: a situational analysis of 218 facilities in 23 sub-Saharan African countries.