Adapting Evidence-Based Interventions to Meet the Needs of Adolescents Growing Up with HIV in South Africa: The VUKA Case Example

The VUKA family program is one of the only evidence-based interventions to promote positive psychosocial outcomes in South African HIV-infected pre- and early adolescents and their families. In this paper, we discuss the collaborative process by which a multidisciplinary team of clinicians, researchers, counselors, and artists/educators and families adapted and developed VUKA for this population using community-based participatory research methods. We describe the intervention and explore lessons learned that may be applicable across contexts related to international collaboration and adapting evidence-based interventions so that they are likely to be acceptable, feasible, and effective in a given setting and country context.