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Activities
Helpline
Telephone
Counselling
Education
Leaflets Pamphlets
Public
Seminars
Website
Workshops
Market
Research and Surveys
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Helpline
There are various options to consider in terms of what kind of helpline
you can establish. Your resourcing and funding will determine what you
can afford to offer.
Option 1 - Cold Helpline
A “cold” helpline is a pre-recorded message with key facts
about herpes, finishing with the recommendation that anyone with concerns
should seek medical advice from a family doctor or STD clinic. There
is no option to speak personally to someone. It can give the caller
the option to leave contact details for either an information pack,
or to be called back.
Example:
“If you would like to speak to someone about herpes please leave
your first name and a contact number and a volunteer will return your
call within 24 hours. Your confidentiality is important to us and we
will not leave a message. Thank you for calling and please leave your
details after the tone.”
Option 2 - Warm Helpline
A “warm” helpline is as above with the added facility of a
counsellor available to talk to at certain times during the day or week.
Option 3 - Hot Helpline
A “hot” helpline is when a counsellor answers the phone at
all times. All three of the above options can be offered either toll
free or as a paid service depending on the budget available.
To see an example of a Helplines pre-recorded message please click here
Telephone Counselling
It is recommended that health professionals provide the first line telephone
response. People with herpes often want to speak to someone else with
herpes but this needs to be approached with caution.
It is critical that if a group of patients volunteer their time to provide
this service that they have medical oversight and appropriate training.
The telephone counsellor must:
- provide callers with accurate and clear information free from technical
jargon
- be fully briefed and trained to ensure a consistent and professional
service
- actively listen to callers’ needs and questions
- make the caller feel confident and welcome to call again
-
respond to questions free from judgement and opinions
- always clarify that the caller has understood the information provided
- make callers aware of other sources of information where appropriate
such as STD clinics, websites and national hotlines
- provide appropriate onward referral whenever necessary.
To see an example of a helpline training package please click here
Educational Leaflets/Pamphlets
Leaflets, fact sheets or pamphlets can be used to provide key facts
about herpes. Comprehensive patient pamphlet resources are available
on the IHA website and can be downloaded, translated if required and
printed with your own contact details (see section 8 for examples).
These resources have been compiled from a variety of patient materials
from around the world, and have the support of people with herpes and
the International Herpes Management Forum.
It is important to take cultural issues into consideration when providing
patient information. If you decide to develop your own material remember
the following:
- use non-technical language that can be understood by the average lay
person
- use illustrations where possible to make the material more accessible
- ensure your material is scientifically accurate – use your medical
advisor to check all final copy
- seek third-party endorsement or support from other credible sources
such as your national STD organisation or a professional medical body.
Having their name linked or logo printed on the material will add authority
to your information.
Distribution
Your resource materials can be made available via your website, if you
have one, and hard copies can be distributed through a variety of routes:
- public seminars
- relevant conferences – both for healthcare professionals and
the general public
- STD clinics
- GP surgeries
-
pharmacies
-
health magazines or women’s/men’s journals.
Public Seminars
A public seminar is a way of providing information and educating the
public about herpes. A seminar can be targeted at people with herpes,
providing them with an opportunity to receive information from an experienced
health professional, as well as providing a forum to meet other people
with herpes. Such an initiative can provide the nucleus for the establishment
of a local
herpes support group.
A seminar can also be targeted at a wider audience including the media,
community workers and even healthcare providers.
The key elements to consider are:
- identifying an experienced health/medical professional to oversee
the programme and delivery of information
- deciding what messages and topics you want to cover.
Consider the following programme as a guide:
|
Programme 6. Psychosocial impact of herpes. |
To
see fuller example please click here
Venue
It is important that the venue is located in a neutral place to help
people feel comfortable and safe. You may be able to obtain a free meeting
room at a local health centre, public community centre, university or
hospital.
Scheduling
Consider the best time to hold your event. Events held on weekends and
evenings tend to draw larger audiences and your preferred speakers are
more likely to be available.
Inviting Delegates and Publicising the Event
- Advertise in your local or national newspaper
- advertise on community radio
- send flyers to support group members, sexual health clinics, family
planning, GP’s and any other relevant health centres/clinics
- issue a short press release to the local media.
Seminar Materials
It is important to have a well-presented programme/agenda ready for
all attendees, along with copies of all resource material and an evaluation
form for attendees to complete.
Covering Costs
Costs can be kept to a minimum by finding an academic venue, which may
be cheap or even free of charge. Light refreshments are recommended
and sponsorship can often be found for this. A registration fee can
be charged to cover key costs of the event such as venue hire, equipment
and refreshments, if you have been unable to secure sponsorship.
Website
Many people seek health information via the Internet as an initial source.
Information can be sourced easily, quickly and generally in confidence.
If you are targeting young people, providing information via a website
is a particularly effective way to reach them.
The IHA has an established website at www.herpesalliance.org.
It contains a number of fact sheets in languages other than English
although the majority of the site is in English only. Creating a website
from concept to development can be expensive. A cost-effective option
would be to create your own homepage in your local language which can
be linked, using your national flag as an icon, to the IHA homepage.
Website Features
The IHA website offers a range of information presented in various formats.
The following features are currently available:
- Patient focused information pamphlets
- News section – new research in herpes, events taking place etc.
- Frequently asked questions – a list of the top 10 or 20 questions
people tend to ask
- Expert comment – short commentaries from herpes experts about
issues and research
- Myths & facts – common misunderstandings about herpes and
the real facts
- Personal experiences – true-life stories of peoples’ experiences
of herpes Should you decide to create your own website then you need
to consider the following:
- When your site is being designed, ensure that it is easy to navigate
- Update your site as often as you can – monthly is a good idea
– this helps to keep the information topical and ensures there
is something new for repeat visitors
- Keep information brief and succinct
- All information must be approved for accuracy and relevance.
Publicising Your Website & Attracting Visitors
Having a good website is pointless if nobody knows its address or that
it exists. There are two main ways of attracting visitors to your site:
- ensuring it is selected through a keyword search via commonly used
search engines
- by publicising the web address
Search engines
There are many search engines that are widely used to locate specific
information. The top internationally used ones include Yahoo, Google,
MSN, AltaVista and AOL. There will be others local to your country and
you will probably already know which are the most commonly used.
Contact the key search engines in your country and find out how they
select and rank sites. Normally they will ask you to complete a form,
providing details of your site and the keywords. You need to keep abreast
of how each key search engine is ranking their top sites. Criteria for
ranking can change so revisit these every few months. A good ranking
tends to be anything
below 30 – so if you appear in the top 10 when the keyword “herpes”
is typed in, you are doing extremely well.
Publicity
Develop a press release to “launch” your site. The release
should cover information about herpes, why a new website is needed and
how it can be a valuable source of information. Include quotes or comments
from independent experts such as your medical advisor.
Many consumer magazines and papers have webwatch sections where they
review websites. Send in your web address with a short description of
what information can be found on the site. Some papers provide listings
of websites within their classified advertising sections. You can pay
to advertise your site in selected papers. Whenever you are generating
publicity about herpes, always have your web address somewhere highly
visible. Click here for more guidance
on how to generate publicity.
Workshops
Decide who to target
Running educational workshops for healthcare professionals can be a
valuable activity. We know that many patients do not always receive
optimal care from their family doctors or general practitioners. Greater
information and education amongst family doctors will help improve the
level of care and treatment provided.
Some countries find that practice-based nurses get involved in counselling
and issuing tests for herpes and other STDs, so consider inviting them.
You may decide to run a workshop aimed at hospital or clinic based doctors
involved in diagnosing and managing herpes. The specialties of these
doctors vary and can include dermatologists, gynaecologists, sexual
health physicians, venereologists and virologists. In many countries
doctors can gain continuing medical education (CME) points from attending
educational workshops and seminars. This is an incentive for them to
attend, as they often need to collect a certain number of points to
prove they are up-to-date with current thinking and medical developments.
The logistics of organising a workshop are similar to those involved
in running a public seminar, as discussed in the previous pages. Good
planning is important to ensure the event runs smoothly.
Programme
Work with your medical advisor to decide on the topics that should be
covered in the workshop. It is important that subjects discussed are
topical and reflect current trends and developments in the area of herpes.
For example, there is currently much interest in the new herpes vaccines
being developed so you could include a presentation updating the delegates
on where these vaccines are in clinical trials, what data is currently
available, how they are likely to be used and for which types of patients.
Bring the patient perspective into the programme so delegates can start
to better understand patient needs. Run a session on how to communicate
with patients when discussing a potentially sensitive subject.
Make it interactive
Build in interactive sessions where your delegates can break out into
smaller groups to discuss topics and come up with their own ideas. For
example, you could ask the audience to break into groups to discuss
effective screening of genital herpes. There are different views on
whether only people deemed at risk of the infection should be screened
or whether universal screening for all sexually active adults should
be considered.
Timing & Venue
You may find that running an evening or weekend event will give you
better attendance for doctors with busy schedules.
Issue your invitations at least 3 months ahead of the date selected.
The venue chosen could be a room within a teaching hospital or a medical
institute, which tend to be cheaper than hiring conference rooms within
hotels.
Market Research and Surveys
If you have a website that is attracting a reasonable number of visitors
each week, consider conducting a survey via your site to find out people’s
knowledge and attitudes about genital herpes. It is always interesting
to discover how little or how much people know about certain health
subjects and herpes is no exception.
A simple questionnaire can be developed to establish levels of knowledge
and how people perceive a diagnosis of herpes.
Once you have a significant number of completed questionnaires (at least
50), analyse the responses and use the results to develop a report and
press release. The press release can form the basis of a news story
about herpes and can be issued to a wide list of media to generate press
coverage. See the section 'Media and
Publicity' for more information about press releases.
If you have a reasonable budget consider conducting some professional
market research or running a survey. The market research could be conducted
amongst both medical and consumer groups and the results compared to
see how opinions differed.
Surveys and market research are valuable internal tools in telling you
about current understanding and opinion. They can help identify significant
gaps in the service that you provide thus giving you ideas for new services.
If the survey shows up gaps in people’s knowledge and understanding,
this may help further legitimise your group as meeting a proven need
for further information.
To
view or download a PDF containing the above information please click
here