Colorful wheel with a smiling cartoon slime character in the center.

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.

Group of people sitting on chairs outdoors, engaged in conversation, with lush foliage in the background, in black and white.

In 2007, 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.

Woman holding a children's book with cartoon characters during a reading session, with children sitting on the floor in front of her.
A woman with glasses and earrings leaning over a table, engaging with a group of people, some wearing white head coverings, in a wooden room.
A black and white close-up of a person's head from above, showing short, curly hair and part of a hand resting on a piece of paper with a drawing of glasses.

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)

A man in a light blue shirt standing in front of whiteboards with handwritten notes and colorful sticky notes in a classroom or workshop setting.
A healthcare professional wearing gloves performs a medical procedure on a patient's finger, using a small cloth or gauze.
A healthcare worker and two women sitting at a table in a colorful room, with children's drawings on the wall behind them. The healthcare worker is showing something on a tablet to a young girl, with toys and art supplies on the table.

KidzAlive Innovations

KidzAlive
Talk Tool App

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KidzAlive Caregiver Connect

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KidzAlive
Child-friendly Spaces

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KidzAlive Projects

  • KidzAlive@home

    Funded by Aidsfonds

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  • KidzAlive Mobilised

    Funded by Qualcomm® Wireless Reach™

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  • KidzAlive Mozambique

    Funded by Aidsfonds

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Find out more about KidzAlive and our courses

Visit the KidzAlive Website

  • This is a course that equips healthcare workers with skills and knowledge to confidently provide holistic services when working with children in HIV testing, disclosure and adherence.

    Available in English and Portuguese

    Learn more about this course.

  • KidzAdherence is a care and support programme designed to address both caregivers and their children. It provides HIV infected children, and their caregivers, with practical guidance on how best to manage their illness.

    Available in English and Portuguese.

    Learn more about this course.

  • This course equips healthcare workers with confidence, skills, knowledge and a framework to support caregivers through the barriers, and journey to disclosure in an age-appropriate, child/adolescent-focused method.

    Learn more about this course.