Guidelines for HIV and AIDS student support services

Since adolescents engage in activities which are at risk for HIV infection, school should provide HIV-related student support services. Guidelines should promote student's AIDS/HIV knowledge and social growth and should set standards for effective support service delivery. Obstacles confronting effective support services delivery include disagreement among school personnel to provide support services, inadequate funding, lack of delivery standards and ineffective monitoring of services, insufficient collaboration with other school personnel and community-based organizations, lack of administrative support, and inadequate training for support service staff in discussing sexual behavior and HIV infection. HIV student support services should provide prevention education, health-related services provided by school nurses and school psychologists, counseling and support, HIV test counseling and support, referral and coordination of support services. Prevention education should encourage healthy sexual attitudes and practices. School nurses can provide medication administration, nutritional assessment, neurological assessment, and health counseling. School psychologists should observe cognitive functioning. Counseling services should be accessible to AIDS symptomatic and HIV-positive students, students with family members or friends with AIDS, gay and lesbian students, substance abusing students, students with limited- English proficiency, differently abled students, and students with a history of sexually transmitted disease. Before testing for HIV antibody, students should receive skilled counseling. Comprehensive counseling should also be available after testing. Student support services should provide referral and coordination by identifying available resources, allowing additional support service capacity when needed, coordinate services to known HIV-infected and HIV-affected students, and collaborate with agencies in the community. Student support services can play a role in policymaking by educating policymakers and the community, reviewing existing policies, advocating strict guarantees of confidentiality, and advocating team approach to service delivery. Staff training is required for personnel to demonstrate expertise in HIV-related issues, to commit to a team model, to effectively discuss sexual issues, and to assist schools in enforcing strict confidentiality guarantees.

Published by The Journal of school health, 1990. The guideline itself is at the source linked here.

doi.org/10.1111/j.1746-1561.1990.tb05927.x