Program educates mothers on HIV

As part of an effort to advance the University's partnership with the community on health-related issues, the Penn Center for Urban Health Research's Mothers and Sons Health Promotion Program works to educate single mothers on the spread of HIV. Entering its second year, the program strives to educate single mothers with sons between the ages of 11 and 15 on how to talk to their children about issues concerning sexual behavior and other health topics, according to Loretta Jemmott, founder of the program and director of the Center. "We begin by entering two women from each of the 42 housing developments in Philadelphia into an 11-day training program designed to teach them the skills they will need when returning to the community to educate others," Jemmott said. These women instruct a group of 25 single mothers in each development on methods of communication and on ways to protect themselves and their sons from drugs and diseases. The program focuses on the prevention of disease through the modification of behavior. "People get diseases like HIV, not because of who they are or where they live, but because of what they do -- behavior that puts people at risk," Jemmott said. HIV most frequently occurs within populations of injection drug users throughout Philadelphia, the nation's ninth-ranked city for reported cases of the disease. "We have to change behavior where it comes from," Nursing spokesperson Susan Greenbaum added. "Kids need to get the message to change from school, media, peers and most importantly the home." Most mothers do not have the knowledge, skill or comfort to talk to their sons about safe sex, according to Jemmott. One single mother residing in a Philadelphia subsidized housing project, Skiela Aikens, recalled: "In my mother's household we didn't talk about sex and health -- it was always, 'This is what we can afford and this is what we eat.' " Drugs and addicts have a strong foothold in the housing developments, places where children are often not fully educated to deal with such issues, according to Deanna Myers, a single mother living in the Mantua Hall High Rise Development. "I have to keep my son indoors from the things children see -- parents being abused, drugs, addicts, children fighting with each other -- only taking him out myself," she added. The material, role playing and teaching methods used within the program's sessions provide single mothers with the knowledge of how to talk to their sons about the dangers present in the housing developments. "What I learned opened a line of speech between me and my son where he felt a little more comfortable discussing his feelings, and I was able to give him the knowledge about sex and drugs that he needs," Aikens said. The program also strives to instill in the participants greater self-confidence and a more positive outlook on life. "What I learned let me live in society without the feeling that I can't make it, like I'm stuck and can't get out, and so many people there feel that way," Myers said. Funded with a grant for $3.9 million over five years by the National Institute of Mental Health, the program will remain as a study for three more years until results are collected on attitude, knowledge and behavior changes among the participants. "My hope is that this study will become a program to be replicated in other cities," she added.