Team PATA

PATA local forum:

Adolescent Workshop held in Cape Town

In between training for the Cape Argus cycle tour (a 104km ride around the Cape Peninsula) with his 11 year old daughter, Paul Roux has been busy organizing a workshop focusing on adolescence. The workshop was held in Cape Town on the 29th and 30th of May 2008 and was a collaborative effort between Kidzpositive, PATA, the One to One Children's Fund and regional stakeholders such as the Department of Health and the HIV AIDS Directorate.

Paul Roux is the head of the paediatric clinic at Groote Schuur Hospital where his team currently provides clinical care, family planning, an adolescent support group, counselling and psychological supervision for adolescents. Groote Schuur, like many other clinics, has a growing population of adolescents to care for - an estimated 1000 in the Western Cape region by 2011.

The workshop aimed:

• To reach consensus on what services need to be available in an adolescent friendly service
• To develop a strategic framework for care delivery
• To identify priority needs that are not yet available
• To identify those who will be able to take a planning process forward

Guest speakers included Donna Futterman who inspired many PATA participants with her presentation at the Swaziland PATA forum. There was wide representation at all levels of care from all Western Cape Provincial Districts and the Cape Town Metropole. The workshop followed the signature PATA format of plenary input with action-oriented participative workshops and a feedback plenary. Participants

More than 160 participants attended the Adolescent care plenary session on Thursday afternoon and represented the following sectors: City of Cape Town Health, National and Provincial departments, NGOs, Universities and health care facilities including primary health care facilities, referral clinics, mobile clinics, district hospitals and teaching hospitals.

Participants were from the Cape Town Metropole, West Coast, Eden and Boland regions. Although the workshop was focused on the Western Cape specifically, a few visitors from the Eastern Cape and Gauteng had requested that they be allowed to participate and so were included in the event. 120 participants attended the Friday workshop session, including 20 youth, 25 management, 30 counsellors (including social workers and psychologists), 20 doctors, 2 pharmacists and 25 nurses.

Click here to see the list of needs and priorities identified at the Adolescent Care Workshop.