Observations from our Family-Based Approach

We have now delivered READY Sessions #2 (Emotional Support in the Family) and #3 (Learning and Talking about HIV as a Family). In both sessions, we used role play and discussions to open up a dialogue about some of the cultural factors that influence families' abilities to both provide emotional support to each other and to talk about sexuality and HIV with youth.

Overall, participants are responding positively to the family-based approach. These are a few observations my research team and I have made over the past two sessions:

(1) Male caregivers are very interested in communication skills...Since the first session in which male caregivers were reluctant to talk with their wives about money, they have become surprisingly receptive to the idea that family communication is one of the most important factors in helping their youth. In addition, without prompting by facilitators, they asked to learn about communication within their marriages because the noticed that tension between parents can be stressful for youth.

(2) Female caregivers have concerns about relationships with in-laws. In Muhuru, when women get married, they usually go to live with their husband's family. Therefore, when we go to churches, often the women are attending with their husband and members of the husband's families. Many of the mothers have said they cannot be open and comfortable to practice communication with their husbands and children because their mothers-in-law are also there, and they are typically the female authority in the family.

(3) In our sessions on economics and emotional support, caregivers participated freely and youth needed more encouragement. This completely switched during the third session that focused on HIV education. Activities asked families to play games answering questions about HIV facts and to discuss questions they have about HIV. The youth were the ones answering all the questions. We clearly saw that the youth are learning HIV facts in school, but lack of adult HIV knowledge is a big barrier to encouraging family communication and problem-solving about issues related to sex and HIV.