The WILLOW intervention is a social-skills building and educational intervention for adult women living with HIV. It consists of 4 four-hour sessions which are delivered by two trained adult female facilitators, one of whom is a woman living with HIV.
The small group sessions consist of 8-10 women living with HIV and are conducted in a community-based setting. An adaptation of the SISTA intervention, WILLOW emphasizes gender pride, informs women how to identify and maintain supportive social networks, teaches coping strategies to reduce life stressors, enhances awareness of STD transmission and HIV reinfection risk behaviors, teaches communication skills for negotiating safe sex, reinforces proper and consistent condom use, distinguishes between healthy and unhealthy relationships, and defines types of abusive relationships and their effect on a woman’s ability to negotiate safer sex practices.