The creation of the Stay Alive program was a collaborative effort between Susan Roylance, (right) founder of United Families International (UFI), and Wendy W. Sheffield (below), MSW, LCSW, renowned co-author of the “Family Enrichment Program,” with the financial and staff support of United Families International and Reach the Children (RTC).

Roylance conceptualized the program and collaborated with Sheffield who then authored the lessons and established the guiding principles and the bio-psycho-social basis of the Stay Alive program.

 
United Families International funded the development of the program, publishes the Stay Alive manuals, and coordinates the development of the curriculum and the implementation of the program with Stay Alive partners in country.

Reach the Children, the main implementing organization for the Stay Alive program in Africa, oversees the pilot testing and conducts the training of Stay Alive teachers. RTC also directly implements Stay Alive in Uganda, Kenya and Ghana. Angie Holzer of RTC created Stay Alive''s popular HIV/AIDS skit and Sharon Slater, past-president of UFI and Britni Brewer of RTC wrote the Stay Alive song.

No one has received any money for the development or writing of the Stay Alive program. It has been a labor of love -- for the children.

History of the Stay Alive Program
In the late 1990s, Roylance began working in Uganda and came face to face with the terrible realities of the AIDS pandemic. She began an intensive study of HIV/AIDS and attended various international conferences where the problems associated with HIV/AIDS were often discussed.

While participating in the United Nations Special Session on HIV/AIDS Roylance heard speakers consistently comment that there was a need to increase the communication between parents and youth, and to teach the children about HIV/AIDS before they became sexually active. After inquiring with USAID and others, she was told that there was a “glaring hole” in AIDS prevention for this type of program.

Realizing that condoms can fail, especially when used by children*, and recognizing that in Africa, a condom failure may not just result in an unwanted pregnancy but could result in the contraction of the deadly HIV virus, Roylancewas convinced that children needed to be better informed. She believed that if youth could learn to understand the consequences of their choices, they would be empowered to make good choices.

Roylance contacted Sheffield, who had previously written an excellent family strengthening program, and asked her to write a series of lessons for African children that would “teach them how to stay HIV/AIDS-free by making choices that would keep them alive.”

Sheffield was well qualified for the task as she had spent more than 20 years professionally helping children, adolescents, and their families find greater happiness by improving and changing thoughts, choices and behavior. Sheffield knew that in order to truly empower children, they would need to learn more than just concepts and facts, they would also need to learn cognitive and behavioral skills. In order to stay alive, it would be imperative for children to learn how to integrate these new concepts and skills into their lives and daily activities.

Drawing upon her professional private practice and teaching experience, Sheffield wrote the lessons in Stay Alive I based on a bio-psycho-social approach. The Stay Alive lessons teach consequential thinking skills, engender hope and build empowerment, while teaching the importance of families and sexual abstinence before marriage. All these critical concepts are linked to HIV/AIDS prevention in a developmentally appropriate and culturally sensitive manner.

Many studies in the U.S. show that communication with parents is a critical component of reducing teenage pregnancy, so Roylance and Sheffield worked together to ensure that the Stay Alive program was developed with a focus on the discussions between the parent or guardian and the child. The parental involvement has proven to be one of the most powerful elements of the program as lesson concepts and skills are reinforced in the home and in the child''s daily life.

Each time Stay Alive has been introduced into a new area, the curriculum has been translated into the new language, pilot tested and adapted to ensure it is culturally valid in that area.

Due to the high demand and the tremendous success and popularity of Stay Alive I in Africa, RTC and UFI were asked to expand the program. Based upon this request Sheffield expanded the Stay Alive Program into a comprehensive series of modules. These modules build upon one another and progressively teach the cognitive-behavior skill sets youth must implement within their daily lives in order to remain HIV/AIDS disease-free. Sheffield then wrote the lessons for Stay Alive modules II and III; the lessons for modules IV and V will be completed soon. These new modules teach not only consequential thinking skills, but also the importance of individual worth, personal responsibility, personal integrity, and healthy relationships, all within the framework of HIV/AIDS prevention, strengthening the family and learning how to live healthy, productive lives.

The overwhelmingly positive response to the Stay Alive program by children, parents, teachers, community and religious leaders and governments has been nothing short of phenomenal. The Stay Alive program has already reached over 750,000 children in 10 African countries, and we cannot even begin to keep up with the demand.

The Stay Alive motto, “I Will Live a Long, Loving Life!” created by Sheffield has become the battle cry for hundreds of thousands of African children and their families, and the Stay Alive program is helping hundreds of thousands of African children to learn the concepts and skills that empower them to “stay alive.”

Those involved with the Stay Alive program believe that a new generation of children can be raised in Africa, and in other countries as the program expands, that will be free of the HIV/AIDS virus and that they will be empowered to live long, loving lives. It has been an exciting journey of love for the children that, although already grand in scope, has only just begun.

“The future of the HIV epidemic lies in the hands of young people. The behaviors they adopt now and those they maintain throughout their sexual lives will determine the course of the epidemic for decades to come.”

*A study done years later by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, showed that youth using condoms and having sexual intercourse experienced condom failure resulting in pregnancy at a rate of 25.8% over two years. Ranjit, Bankole, Darroch, & Singh, “Contraceptive Failure in the First Two Years of Use: Differences Across Socioeconomic Subgroups,” Family Planning Perspectives 33, 1 (2001).