Following three previous initiatives - the Road to Toronto, the Road to Vienna, and the Road to Washington, The Coalition for Children Affected by AIDS (CCABA), with the cooperation and support of UNICEF, UNAIDS and other organizations, led the Road to Melbourne meeting in New York on May 30-31, 2013. 49 people gathered in New York for the first in a series of three meetings hosted by UNICEF. The goal of the meeting series is to build evidence and understanding amongst policy makers and programmers from different disciplines on approaches to the early identification of children born into HIV-affected families through Preventing Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) services and other key entry points such as ECD programming to ensure the linked provision of integrated services and support to children at risk and their families to promote optimal development. The objective of the meeting was to influence funder and policy-maker priorities, and country-level practice.
Ms. Kate Lorpenda, Chair of the Coalition and Senior Advisor, HIV, Children and Impact Mitigation for the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, opened the meeting by giving the background of the Coalition and setting the context for this series. Dr. Christian Salazar, Director, Programme Division, UNICEF also made welcoming remarks, noting that for UNICEF, the “Road to Melbourne” is also a road to the post-MDG (2015) discussion. After introductory comments, meeting participants heard presentations from nine panels, including on topics of particular relevance to children's care, such as "Comprehensive care and support models for children affected by AIDS (CABA)," and "Integrated support to families for optimal development".
Among other presentations, Professor Linda Richter spoke of bringing integrated support for families to scale to reach the vast majority of vulnerable children who are not being reached by interventions, discussing the findings from 2 reviews of research/ programmes in High Income countries, including Partnerships to Promote Children’s Development (WHO 2013) and Supporting, strengthening parenting (PEPFAR/USAID 2013). Theresa Betancourt presented the Family Strengthening Intervention for Rwanda, a family-based preventive model focused on identifying and enhancing resilience and communication in families who are managing stressors due to parental illness before mental health problems develop.
The Coalition is supporting a special issue of the journal AIDS and the final date for submitting papers for this special issue will be December 20, 2013.
For more information on the meeting, and to download the presentations, please visit: http://www.ccaba.org/road-to-melbourne-series-presentations-from-new-york/
