Funded by Gilead, the Culturally Safer HIV Leadership Training project aims to increase inclusiveness and assess the content of PLDI trainings to ensure greater cultural safety for Indigenous, African, Caribbean, and Black (ACB) participants.

The first steps of this year-and-a-half project have been to set up a community advisory committee for each of the communities, in link with the 5-year funding of our alliance by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). Then, we set up focus groups with Peer Cultural Safety Evaluators following both the training as participants and, at the same time, getting involved in parallel work as evaluators of these PLDI trainings.

The involvement of these peer evaluators requires a dozen hours of paid work, in addition to the hours of PLDI training (around twelve hours for an online module spread over three weeks). In addition to their participation, they are responsible for noting their observations in an evaluation manual and attending project follow-up meetings, in order to feed data collection based on the post-program method. (See ACB FR or Indigenous EN recruitment description)

In addition to training PLDI leaders, we hope to gain a better understanding of what can be done to ensure a more inclusive and culturally safe environment for participants from Indigenous and ACB communities. As a result, Peer Cultural Safety Evaluators will also develop skills in cultural safety assessment, in addition to being paid for their work in this capacity.

 

As of today, our community advisory committees have reviewed the evaluation process and manual created for the online Core module evaluation, and two focus groups, one in English and one in French (4 Indigenous people and 4 members of the ACB community from five provinces across the country) participated as peer reviewers in the online Core and Governance trainings.

Furthermore, an abstract of the project titled: Cultural Safety Assessment Methodology has been accepted for poster presentations at the 32nd Canadian Association for HIV Research Conference (CAHR 2023), which will take place from April 27 to 30, 2023 at the Palais des congrès de Québec, Quebec.

We’ll see you there to further discuss PLDI and the Culturally Safer HIV Leadership Training project.

Next steps :

  • Data entry into quantitative analysis software
  • Output preliminary results
  • Evaluation of online training and preliminary report to alliance coordinators
  • Attend the Canadian HIV/AIDS Research Conference in Quebec at the end of April (CAHR)
  • Evaluation of the In-Person Communication training in June 2023
  • Coordinate basic in-person training in Saskatchewan – Summer/Fall 2023
  • Compile data, recommendations, and present project results to PLDI stakeholders – fall 2023

In-person Communication – June 2023 (Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia)

If you are a PLDI Core module graduate, identify as First Nation, Métis, Inuit, or Afro-Caribbean (ACB), are available and interested in being a Peer Cultural Safety Evaluator for the Communication training offered in June in person in Quebec (in French) and in Ontario and British Columbia (in English), do not hesitate to contact the project coordinator now sylvain.beaudry@cocqsida.com or to contact the coordination or organization in your region (PAN, OAN, COCQ-SIDA).

In-person Core module – Summer/Fall 2023 (Saskatchewan)

If you are living with HIV, understand and speak English, reside in the Prairies, and want to participate in the PLDI Core Module which will take place in person in late summer, or early fall in Saskatchewan, contact the PLDI Alliance: mbilodeau@ontarioaidsnetwork.ca

In short, there is still a lot of work ahead, but very stimulating work that is essential to the development of positive leadership throughout the country.

Keep in touch and stay informed of upcoming PLDI activities.