Gay Businesses - HIV Prevention
posted: 18/04/2011
Gay venues and businesses, like saunas, clubs, bars, profile and other gay websites, travel agencies and hotels, can either help reduce, or may increase the numbers of HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STI) among gay, bi and other men who have sex with men (MSM).
There’s a new guide which sets out for businesses standards that will help not hinder HIV prevention called Everywhere. It comes from the University of Brighton.
Persuading gay businesses to help reduce the numbers of HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STI) needs more than persuasion skills, it needs HIV prevention organisations to have ways of selling the advantages of HIV and STI prevention to these businesses.
Sex sells, so how can HIV prevention help these businesses sell themselves? The answers and training for HIV prevention organisations are provided in a training manual to go with the prevention standards manual for gay businesses.
One part of the training manual is called ‘Incentives for MSM business to be socially responsible’ and another is about working with hostile businesses. The training manual for helping HIV prevention organisations work with gay serving businesses to reduce HIV and other STI transmissions, is the Training Workbook on Social Mediation with Gay and MSM Businesses regarding HIV/STI prevention.
Both the standards for businesses and the the training manual are the work of the Europe-wide Everywhere Consortium for HIV prevention and their website has sections for gay men’s HIV and sexual health organisations, for businesses serving gay and bi men, and for gay men a section of the website lists venues and businesses which meet these HIV and sexual health prevention standards. So far few businesses are listed as meeting these standards - in the UK there are some in London and Brighton; in France some in Paris, in Spain some in Madrid, for example.
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Comforted Creatures Video
posted: 14/04/2011
We produced this animation (with apologies to Ardman Animation’s Creature Comforts) as a serious but amusing presentation on some of our work, for the Elton John AIDS Foundation. You can view it on the new videos page of the HIV magazine Baseline.
We interviewed people with HIV who have benefited from our positive prevention work and residential weekends, funded by the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
Excellent Presentation
After presenting all our Positive Prevention work which they have funded, to the Foundation's panel, they told us:
"George House Trust were the first to present and I have to say set a standard that was not replicated. If there was ever a lesson on how to do an interesting presentation, that was it.
Lynda and Colin spoke with passion about the work, the achievements so far and the publication of initial outcomes (they had the BHIVA/NHIVNA poster displayed).
An individual talked very openly and honestly about how he had benefited from the programme and to top it all we were treated to an animated film with people’s real experiences of the support and help they had received.
A perfect presentation with something for everyone - excellent!"
CHAPS impressed
We also showed this at the recent CHAPS conference held in Manchester for organisations and people involved in HIV prevention work with men who have sex with men. Robbie Currie, a leading NHS HIV prevention commissioner in London was very impressed, asking number of questions and commenting how useful a resource it was, and his interested in having something similar.
View Comforted Creatures here http://www.baseline-hiv.co.uk/latest-videos
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Speak at Positive Prevention Conference?
posted: 12/04/2011
George House Trust, the Manchester based HIV support organisation, runs a Positive Prevention project, funded by the Elton John AIDS Foundation. We are holding a free national conference in Manchester on 1st July for staff and organisations doing positive prevention work, to share best practice, and to consider developing minimum standards for Positive Prevention work.
Speakers Wanted
We are inviting people who would like to speak at this conference about their experience in Positive Prevention work to contact us.
Positive Prevention means working to support people living with HIV, where one of the benefits is reducing onward HIV transmission. Positive Prevention at George House Trust includes
- one to one support
- group "peer support" spaces
- courses for people newly diagnosed with HIV and
- reflective residential weekends for people diagnosed with HIV for longer than 12 months.
Most of our weekends and courses have been for gay and bi men, and we have run others for people living with HIV.
Call for speakers
If you
- Are working in an organisation doing ‘positive prevention’ work with people living with HIV, or
- Want to share the positive prevention work you are doing, or
- Have any data from positive prevention work which shows changes in behaviour or knowledge (we want the conference to hear evidence both of what works, and what doesn’t seem to work), or
- Want to highlight aspects of positive prevention work, or
- Are a person with HIV who has taken part in a Positive Prevention project, or
- Want to suggest a speaker with relevant knowledge or experience of Positive Prevention
we want to hear from you.
Presentations can be in any format and would be for the whole conference, of about 35 people.
Please Contact Chris
If you are interested in making a presentation, please email Chris Morley with your proposal by Monday 23rd May .
Interested in attending?
This conference is only for people and organisations already doing Positive Prevention. If you would like to come as a delegate to the Positive Prevention conference, please contact Chris.
What some people with HIV have said about our residential weekends
- The weekend really helped me to identify where I am now - and to look clearly at what I need for the future
- I learned so much from the other men and really now feel focussed on making positive changes
- It helped me connect, and gave me support and direction
- The weekend has given me a real boost and I feel now like I can face some of my issues in a constructive way and really move forward
- Thanks for a great weekend which has helped me think about how I deal with some of my fears and anxieties about living with HIV
- The weekend gave me a sense of space and safety to be able to talk more confidently about living with HIV now and in the future.
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HIV Prevention Conference Talks
posted: 11/04/2011
The presentations, from all the speakers at the national CHAPS gay and other men who have sex with men’s (MSM) HIV prevention conference, are now available online. This CHAPS conference was held in Manchester, in March.
The full programme here tells you who the speakers were and more about each talk
Here’s what’s available - the presentations are PowerPoint files.
If you need a programme to view PowerPoint presentations download the PowerPoint Viewer programme here
Session 1
- Work with prisons
- Advice services for PLHIV
- Advice services for PLHIV 2
- HIV prevention with the over 50s
- Asian MSM
- Sexual health services in the community
- Online initiatives
- Online initiatives 2 - social media
Session 2
- The role of fear in HIV prevention
- Re-engaging the community
- South London HIV Prevention (SLHP) model of HIV prevention 1
- SLHP model of HIV prevention 2
- SLHP model of HIV prevention 3
- SLHP model of HIV prevention 4
- SLHP model of HIV prevention 5
- SLHP model of HIV prevention 6
- European MSM Internet Sex Survey (EMIS)
- Treatment as prevention 1
- Treatment as prevention 2
Session 3
- Targeted working
- Transmen 1
- Transmen 2
- Sex workers 1
- Sex workers 2
- Blood donations
- Partner numbers and patterns
Session 4
- Undiagnosed infection - partner notification
- Undiagnosed infection - MSM
- National LGB Drugs and Alcohol Database
- The role of fear in HIV prevention
- Sexual orientation monitoring
- European MSM Internet Sex Survey - Differences in STI testing
- The changing sexual behaviours of MSM
Session 5
- Measuring outcomes 1
- Measuring outcomes 2
- Measuring outcomes 3
- Treatment as prevention 1
- Treatment as prevention 2
- Just gay men?
- Condom and lube distribution 1
- Condom and lube distribution 2
- Pornography and gay men's attitudes towards sex, risk and pleasure
- Telling partners about HIV status 1
- Telling partners about HIV status 2
Session 6
- Re-engaging the community
- HIV and ageing
- Young people and homophobia
- Crystal Meth
- Testing times 1
- Testing times 2
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Euro Gay HIV Prevention Conference
posted: 11/04/2011
The Swedish Institute for Communicable Disease Control is holding a European HIV Prevention for men who have sex with men conference. Men, Men Sex and HIV will be on Thursday 10th and Friday 11th November 2011, in Stockholm, Sweden.
The conference is for
- Government organisations (involved in healthcare, disease control and prevention)
- Other organisations targeting MSM
- Researchers
They want the conference to deal with the rise in HIV and the other sexually transmitted infections (STI) among MSM.
Fresh evidence-based methods of prevention are needed along with more activity to cut HIV and STI transmissions and to develop ‘Second Generation Surveillance’. [Second Generation Surveillance means regular, systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of information for tracking and describing changes in the HIV epidemic over time. It includes gathering information on risk behaviours, and using these to warn about and explain changes in levels of HIV infection].
The conference will also help bridge the gap between Western and Eastern European HIV and STI prevention work, by sharing lessons, best practice and research.
They also want the conference to involve commercial and other businesses which can contribute to gay men’s prevention such as bars and clubs and profile websites.
Subjects and themes
- Understanding the epidemic
- Vulnerability and social determinants
- Response, Prevention, Intervention and Performance/Outcomes
- Positive Sex and Prevention
- European regional differences
- Co-operation between sectors (academic/governmental/civil society/private and commercial)
- Sustainability
- Empowerment - healthy choices
- Innovative approaches
Conference website
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