KidzAlive, a unique chronic care model for children living with HIV, TB, and childhood trauma, celebrates childhood and acknowledges the cognitive, legal, and cultural challenges and limitations associated with childhood, and how they hinder children’s access to health services and ability to adhere to medication.

A group of African American people sitting outdoors on chairs, engaging in conversation, with trees and plants in the background.

In 2008, the model was developed to address the huge gap in the provision of HIV case-finding in children.

Early focus group findings from the Zoë-Life team revealed three major challenges resulting in the limited involvement and participation of children in HIV service provision, namely caregiver fear and their lack of skills relating to disclosure, frontline healthcare workers’ lack of skills and confidence in providing child-focused psychosocial support to children, and lack of job aids to support a child-friendly, age-appropriate service to children.

A woman reading a children's book with illustrations of cartoon characters to children in a classroom.

Black and white top-down view of a person with short curly hair drawing or writing on paper with a pen, with some sketches or designs visible on the paper.

A woman wearing glasses and a dark shirt leaning over a table, engaging with a group of people wearing head coverings, in a wooden-paneled room.

Our approach involves training, mentoring, and coaching healthcare and community workers to provide integrated child-centred care to children, adolescents and their primary caregivers that address HIV/AIDS and other chronic conditions.

We provide a comprehensive psycho-social package, which includes age-appropriate language, colourful characters, and play therapy tools and techniques that address:

• Case-finding of Untested Children

• HIV Counselling and Testing

• Health-Promoting Disclosure (0-24 years)

• Child-Friendly Treatment Literacy

• Adherence (Individual and Support Groups)