Sister to Sister: Take Control of Your Health

Sister to Sister: Take Control of Your Health (TCYH) is a one-on-one, woman-to-woman, brief intervention where a provider offers her patient the knowledge and skills they need to reduce their risk of HIV. The intervention seeks to empower women of color to take control of their health by choosing pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and/or using condoms consistently to prevent HIV.

About Sister to Sister: Take Control of Your Health

Sister to Sister: Take Control of Your Health (TCYH) is an adaptation of the 1993 original intervention, Sister to Sister: Respect Yourself! Protect Yourself! Because You Are Worth It! This adaptation incorporates advancements in HIV prevention, such as inclusion of education on PrEP and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP). The intervention also uses CDC’s #ShesWell assets, part of the Let’s Stop HIV Together campaign to reinforce a variety of healthful messages.

Intervention Objectives

Women who participate in this program will be able to:

  • Identify the ways HIV can be transmitted and the ways it cannot
  • Understand their personal vulnerability to HIV
  • Identify three highly effective methods to prevent HIV
  • Demonstrate the correct steps for using a condom

Intervention Core Elements

  • Helping the patient understand her own vulnerability to HIV and how HIV affects women like her
  • Helping the patient understand that condoms work and can be a healthy and sexy addition to her sex life
  • Helping the patient learn how to properly use a condom
  • Helping the patient practice negotiating condom use with her partner and responding to her partners’ reactions to condom use
  • Helping the patient understand PrEP and how it can help her take control of her health
  • Building the patient’s self-efficacy by helping her acknowledge that she is in control of her health, and she is worth it
  • Demonstrating a caring attitude toward the patient
  • Ensuring women providers are trained to deliver this intervention

Sister to Sister: TCYH Training

This training of facilitators course is designed for a variety of women who provide HIV care and education services in clinics and primary health care settings, including community health workers, health educators, nurses, social workers, HIV case managers, and patient navigators.

Training Objectives:

  • Identify at least 5 of the core elements of Sister to Sister: TCYH
  • List at least 3 of the key characteristics of Sister to Sister: TCYH
  • List the 9 activities of Sister to Sister: TCYH and describe how the activities help providers build patients’ self-efficacy
  • Practice delivering the Sister to Sister: TCYH intervention

This training has two components:

  • A one-hour self-paced prerequisite eLearning module
  • A two-day live, instructor-led virtual training

To view and register for scheduled trainings:

  1. Access the National HIV Classroom Learning Center training calendar hosted on Cicatelli Associates, Inc.’s (CAI’s) website.
  2. Pre-register for your selected course via the link provided in the training calendar.
  3. Complete your registration on CDC TRAIN as directed when you receive an email from the National HIV Classroom Learning Center. You must join the HIV CBA Learning Group and locate the HIV CBA Training Plan in order to complete your CDC TRAIN registration for a specific classroom training session (step-by-step instructions are available).

To request that a training session be scheduled:

  1. CDC’s directly funded health department and CBO partners may request delivery of a CDC-supported training by submitting a request in the CBA Tracking System.
  2. Organizations not directly funded by CDC may contact their local health department for assistance in submitting a training request.

After you have completed the course, you may request technical assistance:

  1. CDC’s directly funded health department and CBO partners may request technical assistance by submitting a request in the CBA Tracking System.
  2. Organizations not directly funded by CDC may contact their local health department for assistance in submitting a request.

If you have questions or need additional assistance, please contact HIVCBA@cdc.gov.

Implementation and Marketing Materials

The materials and resources listed below support the implementation and/or marketing of Sister to Sister: Take Control of Your Health by state and local health departments, community-based organizations, and health care or other organizations. The resources are evidence-based and designed for cost-effective, scalable implementation.

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  • Aaron E, Blum C, Seidman D, et al. Optimizing delivery of HIV preexposure prophylaxis for women in the United States. AIDS Patient Care STDs 2018;32(1):16-23. doi:10.1089/apc.2017.0201.
  • Bandura A. Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall; 1986.
  • Jemmott LS, Jemmott JB, O’Leary A. Effects on sexual risk behavior and STD rate of brief HIV/STD prevention interventions for African American women in primary settings. Am J Public Health 2007;97(6):1034-1040.
  • Lambert CC, Marrazzo J, Amico RK, Mugavero MJ, Elopre L. PrEParing women to prevent HIV: An integrated theoretical framework to PrEP Black women in the United States. J Assoc Nurses AIDS Care 2018;29(6):835-848. doi:10.1016/j.jana.2018.03.005.