Face of Care: Healthcare Providers Do it Right, Do it Together, Do it Now. Storybook.

Face of Care is a campaign informed by an ongoing research collaboration with Western University in Canada, supported by a SSHRC Connection Grant to document enabling factors that promote and support the well-being of frontline social and health workers in the paediatric-adolescent HIV response through visual participatory methodologies.

PATA believes that building more effective health systems will require transformation from the ground up. Therefore, we position frontline healthcare providers who work closely with communities at the heart of our strategy, and at the centre of our Face of Care Campaign.

Health systems must be responsive to local contexts. We need healthcare providers with the capacity to deliver holistic and integrated services that are friendly, stigma-free, rights-based and people-centred.

The critical gaps that remain in the HIV response are centred around access to quality services. Frontline healthcare providers, along with the facilities they work in, play a vital role in delivering and integrating HIV services. Increased investment and health system strengthening on the frontline of service delivery is urgently needed if we are to reach global targets and end AIDS in children, adolescents and young people, yet the roles and voices of healthcare providers are often excluded, neglected or rendered invisible.

When healthcare providers are visible, they are often characterised as part of the problem: they are unfriendly; they have negative attitudes; they discriminate against key populations; they stigmatise young people seeking sexual and reproductive health rights and services.

The Face of Care Campaign aims to flip the script to ensure that we showcase how those on the frontline of service delivery are champions and change agents for the rights and health of children, adolescents and young people. They work close to the ground and are themselves members of the communities they serve, making them best placed to develop context-specific and sustainable solutions.

Healthcare providers:

• play a critical role in the HIV
• often work in tough, under resourced circumstances
• are seldom acknowledged or engaged as critical partners with agency and a positive role to play
• work in environments where voicing their concerns or challenges is difficult and may threaten their job security
• want to do their jobs well, and to make a meaningful contribution