4M+: My Health, My Choice, My Child, My Life: perinatal peer mentoring project with women living with HIV in East Africa

Events Training

 

December 2020: Now that 4M Mentor Mothers Network CIC has become an independent organisation in its own right, we are delighted to redirect you to its own new site. Please go to this new site for all updated information about 4M’s activities. This current page will no longer be updated.

October 2019: 4M Peer Mentor Training of Trainers Manual launched

We are thrilled to announce the e-launch of our 4M Mentor Mothers Training of Trainers Manual. This is the culmination of over 5 years of work, developing and delivering training materials created by, with and for women living with HIV, to support them as they go on their pregnancy journey.
Training workshops, on which the two-volume manual is based, have taken place across the UK, as well as in Kenya and Uganda.

To see what others think of the manual, click here. To access Volume 1 of the manual click here. You can then access Volume 2 through the links in Volume 1.

 

International Women’s Day 8 March 2018

To mark the completion of the 4M+ Programme, kindly funded by MAC AIDS Fund, UNYPA, PIPE and Salamander Trust are really pleased to share with you our Advocacy Brief on International Women’s Day, 8 March 2018.

This Advocacy Brief describes the programme’s rationale, process, successes, challenges and our dreams for the future. You can access this brief by clicking here.

Project Background 2017

Salamander Trust is delighted that we were funded by the MAC AIDS Fund to deliver training workshops with our partners, Personal Initiative for Positive Empowerment (PIPE) in Kenya and UNYPA in Uganda, for women living with HIV who will become ‘Mentor Mothers’.

Women living with HIV have been trained and skilled up as ‘Mentor Mothers’ to support other women living with HIV, around them. Each training was  delivered over 3 days.

The trained ‘Mentor Mothers’  are now able to support expectant mothers (and those planning to conceive) to feel that they are in the driving seat in relation to these 4 issues.

The project is led by a Steering Group, which includes healthcare clinicians and women living with HIV.

 

Training/Workshop Aims

The aims are to train the participants in the following knowledge, so that they can each support an average of 5 other women living with HIV as they go through the pregnancy journey.
Participants gain an understanding and/or enhance their knowledge and skills around:

Preconception Planning: basics of HIV, preventing onward and vertical transmission; safer conception/what to consider if/when planning to conceive
Pregnancy: what happens during pregnancy; national guidelines/interventions to prevent onward transmission; how to apply these at a personal level/strategies around talking to significant others about HIV
Delivery: Available options and when which would be suitable/making informed choices around Sexual & Reproductive Health & Rights
Aftercare:  For both the woman and her baby/the importance of staying engaged in health and social care services before/during and after delivery.
Creative Writing/Peer support: To give participants a safe and creative space in which to explore, share and reflect upon their experiences of living with HIV; as well as to explore, enhance and reinforce their role as effective ‘Mentor Mothers’, through creative writing exercises.

Training Methods

Each training session lasts 3 days. The whole training is conducted in a highly interactive participatory way.

Now that the training is completed, UNYPA and PIPE will continue supporting and, where relevant, refer women living with HIV, in need of support, to the trained ‘Mentor Mothers’.

To read about our 4M project with colleagues in the UK, click here.