New HIV Job in Preston

posted: 17/11/2009

Preston is the place for a new fulltime HIV services co-ordinator for CLASS.

They say 'This post offers a unique opportunity to develop support opportunities for those living with and affected by HIV in Central Lancashire, offering a partnership approach with existing services and harnessing the skills and experiences of those living with and affected by HIV.

You’ll be part of Drugline-Lancashire Ltd under its SHIVER (Sexual Health HIV Education and Reponses) banner.'

The job is funded by Central Lancashire PCT and Lancashire County Council Social Services.

• Do you have a relevant degree and/or comparable counselling/adult training qualifications?
• You will require excellent listening, counselling, communication, supervision/support, presentation/training, monitoring /reporting, case working and administrative skills.
• You will demonstrate an up to date knowledge and understanding of HIV and Sexual Health and ideally have experience of working with volunteers.
• You will be able to work in a flexible way and have confidence in individual and group settings.

Drugline – Lancashire Ltd has a commitment to personal staff development in line with DANOS and Equal Opportunities

For an Application Form and further details please contact:
Drugline – Lancashire Ltd. 2 Union Court, Union Street, Preston PR1 2HD Tel: 01772 253840 or download application pack [when we looked it wasn't yet available, but should appear within a day or two] Only applicants short-listed for interview will hear from them.

Closing Date: Thursday 3rd December 2009 10am
Proposed Interview Date: Tuesday 15th December 2009
 

Drugline – Lancashire Ltd is a county-wide voluntary organisation. The service provides confidential and non-judgemental support for drug-using individuals, their carers and workers, for people using legal or illegal substances either experimentally, recreationally or dependently.

CLASS

World AIDS Day - Lancashire

posted: 28/10/2009

World AIDS Day (1 December) is being made a red letter day across Lancashire. Here’s the events we already know about.

Pantomine and Cabaret
25 November Red Ribbon Pantomine @ Twaites Theatre Blackburn
27 November Red Ribbon Cabaret @ 53 degrees, UCLAN, Preston
Full details here

Ormskirk Clubbing
WAD 1st December
Outrageous club in Ormskirk, WAD fundraiser for CLASS (CLASS provide HIV support from Preston for people in central Lancashire)

HIV Vigil - Preston and Blackburn
WAD Vigil, 7.30pm St Johns Minster, Church Street, Preston
WAD Vigil, 7.30pm (to be confirmed) Blackburn Cathedral, Blackburn

Event
Friday 4th December, Preston FLAG Market (Market Square) Celebrating life with HIV event - we've not been told when - email Andy Thompson the LGBT community worker at SHIVER 

Schools and Colleges Awareness - Blackpool
From 6 December there’s a week of awareness in several schools as part of the 'Respect' week. There will be speakers on ‘respect’ issues such as domestic violence, homophobic bullying and sexual health.
A speaker living with HIV will give an informal talk on Friday 4 December to 6th form students who are being trained as teenage peer educators, and to the whole sixth form in the following week.

iPhone quiz prize for school and college students
lAndy Thompson, SHIVER’s LGBT worker and a colleague will give short talks on HIV at several school assemblies. A free Q&A quiz about HIV will award the winner an iPhone and is already drawing much student interest, promoted by the poster produced by the 6th form to advertise it.

Teenage peer educators The teenage peer educators are making a short film for these school assemblies which will include sound bites and clips from programmes popular with teens, such as Holyoaks which has a current Malachy and HIV storyline. 

Red Ribbons for donations will be widely available at the schools and colleges during this fortnight.

Video at Blackpool council customer centre
On a continuous display loop is a short video presentation in the Customer First Centre of Blackpool borough council; this will run for two weeks from 23rd November to 6 December.
 

This short video will also be shown in all the local LGBT venues on and around the 1st.

Mardi Gras club vigil - Blackpool
A short service and vigil will be held in the Blackpool gay club Mardi Gras on the Saturday 28 November and on Tuesday 1 December
 

Flying Handbag - Blackpool

There’s a charity all-dayer at the Flying Handbag on Sunday the 6 December to raise money for next year. £2 on the door.

Red Ribbon Pantomine

posted: 09/09/2009

The Red Ribbon Pantomine is for grownups and is a fundraising event for HIV support charities in Lancashire. It's presented by Preston LGBT centre and stars Linda and The laundrettes, Virgins in Peril, Blackburn DAPA and more.

There are two performances only - Wednesday 25 November at the Empire Theatre in Blackburn, and on Friday 27 November at the 53 Degrees, in Preston.

Blackburn Wednesday 25 November, Empire Theatre, Aqueduct Road, Ewood, Blackburn, (map here) 7pm entrance, curtain up 7.30pm.

Box Office 01254 685 500 Tickets £10 (seated)

The Red Ribbon Cabaret was first conceived in Blackburn as 'Aid for AIDS' in 1992, in response to a friend of the original event organiser being diagnosed HIV positive. Tony Abbott was from Blackburn, and the trust fund that was initiated in his name was to support people living with HIV in the Blackburn area.Through the original 'Aid for AIDS' event and subsequent annual Red Ribbon Balls, over £11,000 was raised for the trust in Tony's name.

Preston Friday 27 November, 53 Degrees, Brook Street, Preston (map here), doors open at 9pm. 

Box Office 01772 893 000 Tickets £8 for a standing performance.

HIV Support in Lancashire

posted: 21/08/2009

There are a range of support services for people living with HIV in Lancashire. There are services in Lancaster, Morecambe, Preston, Hyndburn, Blackburn.

North Lancashire

Monthly peer support meeting in Lancaster every second Thursday

Every 2nd Thursday each month, at 7 - 9pm  - the dates in 2009 are

10 September, 8 October, 12 November,17 December

In 2010 - 14 January, 11 February, 11 March, 8 April, 13 May, 10 June, 8 July, 12 August, 9 September, 14 October, 11 November, 9 December 2010.

This HIV peer support group is open to everyone living with HIV regardless of age, gender, sexuality, race or nationality. To find out more about the group and where it will meet, please call

• Sue 07825 207 024
• Peter 07855 342 732

In addition to this monthly support group, the organisation

Signposts MARC

 offers
 

• 1-2-1 support
• Case work
• Access to counselling
• Access to Complementary Therapies
• Information
• Advice
• Welfare Fund
• HIV Testing

For details please contact:
Signposts MARC
58 Regents Road
Morecambe
LA3 1TE

01254 419 021
email

Central and West Lancashire - CLASS, in Preston

CLASS
2 Union Court
Union Street
Preston
PR1 2HD

01772 253 840
Helpline: 01772 825 684
Email
Website 
 

CLASS, in Preston, offer people living with HIV

• Peer Support group – meets every Thursday evening
• 1-2-1 support
• Case work
• Counselling
• Complementary Therapies
• Information
• Advice
• Welfare Fund
• Events and Courses

East Lancashire

In East Lancashire, in Hyndburn, the Citizens Advice Bureau provides

• Information
• Advice

Hyndburn Area Citizens Advice Bureau provides free, confidential, impartial and independent advice and assistance to everbody regardless of race, gender, disability of sexuality.

Hyndburn CAB  - click for full bureau details. Find the bureau with this map
New Era Centre
Paradise Street
Accrington BB5 1PB
01254 394210
 

To book an appointment, Monday to Friday 9am - 5pm, please call 01254 304114
e-mail Christine Hamilton
 

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THRIVINE
Thrivine has two peer support groups in Blackburn - if you have not been before please contact THRIVINE first - otherwise they may turn you away.

• one meets every Thursday afternoon  2pm - 4pm
• the other every 3rd Tuesday evening each month 6pm - 9pm (in 2010 : 19 January, 16 February, 16 March, 20 April, 18 May, 15 June, 20 July, 17 August, 21 September, 19 October, 16 November, 21 December).

THRIVINE
Unit 20
Business Development Centre
Eanam Wharf
Blackburn BB1 5BL

Adrienne on 07890 147 806

Email either Adrienne  or Thrivine 

Website - AIDrienne’s HIV Blog - Hivine is written by women who are HIV positive but still with a sense of humour.
 

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George House Trust  - in Blackburn

• 1-2-1 support
• Access to peer support
• Access to counselling
• Access to complementary therapies
• Information
• Advice
• Welfare Fund

For more information 

please ring or email
0161 274 4499
email 
website
 

Comments, Questions, Complaints, about services in Lancashire

If you have any comments, enquiries or complaints about HIV social support services in Lancashire, please contact the Lancashire HIV Services Coordinator, Peter Channon, by phone or email

email

01772 253 840

Shortest Jail for NW HIV Case

posted: 24/11/2008

A Lancashire man now living in Cheshire, who recklessly passed on HIV to his former girlfriend and then fled to Thailand, has been jailed for a year.

Police initially thought the 41-year-old may have died in the 2004 Boxing Day Asian tsunami, but he was later spotted in Clitheroe, Lancashire.
 

Infected as a teenager by treatment for haemophilia

Preston Crown Court heard the man contracted HIV in the 1980s when he was 17 through contaminated blood clotting agent (Factor 8) which is essential to treat his haemophilia. Many haemophiliacs (people whose blood doesn’t clot properly) were given imported Factor 8 treatment made from blood obtained from risky USA sources in an NHS blood scandal in the 1980s. His imported factor 8 blood product was contaminated with HIV. Factor 8 is now made from fully screened UK blood and is treated as an extra precaution.
 

Shame and stigma blocked telling

The 1980s stigma attached to HIV (at the time of the scary icebergs and tombstone public information campaigns when there was no treatment for HIV) meant he was too frightened and embarrassed to tell anyone - including his long term partner.

The court heard how the man who used to live in Accrington, Lancashire, met his then girlfriend in 1993 at a Blackburn nightclub, when he was 25 and she was 16. The pair started a relationship, buying a home in Accrington together.

Prosecuting, Peter Horgan said: "At first they used condoms but as the relationship developed they regularly had unprotected sex." The couple went through a brief separation and eventually split in 2000.

Five months later, the woman learnt through a friend of her partner’s that he was HIV positive. She tested positive for the illness, as did a man with whom she had a later long term relationship.
Scientific tests on blood samples revealed the woman probably contracted the illness between 1994 - 1996.

Her weight plummeted from 10 stone to six, she was hospitalised after two suicide attempts and had to undergo counselling. In a victim statement, the woman, now 32 and a mother-of-two, said: "I feel like a 90-year-old woman, unable to walk upstairs. My life has fallen apart. It is hard to express in words how I felt getting such horrible news. I kept thinking of my son, who would look after him if I was to die?"

Arrested at Manchester airport

The matter was reported to the police in 2003 but he fled to Thailand soon after. Following negotiations between police and his solicitor he was arrested at Manchester airport in January 2007.

Defending Mark Stuart said that the 1980s attitude that HIV was contracted through homosexual sex or needle sharing led him to keep quiet about his condition. Mr Stuart said: "He was extremely immature. He didn't tell anyone. He should have told her. He was in love with her, this was not a case of him using and abusing her.”

The man, who lives in Crewe with his Thai wife of seven years, pleaded guilty to reckless grievous bodily harm. He wept as he was jailed for a year.

Sentencing dilemma and some compassion

Judge Andrew Woolman said he had found it a difficult sentencing. Jailing him for 12 months, he said: "You started off as a victim, then you created two more in the course of your selfish activities, which were highly reckless. You were the victim of both haemophilia and from the misfortune of being given infected blood, but at no stage during that relationship did you discuss you were HIV positive. When you resumed that relationship you once again had the opportunity to tell her of your position."
He added: "You have effectively infected two people with the HIV virus, both have developed AIDS.
The consequences have been devastating, both physically and psychologically.

"It is a tragedy that I have to be sentencing you at all and I cannot restore back your health. I have come to the conclusion that where a person puts their own needs before those of others there has to be some measure of punishment."

Speaking after sentencing, officer in the case, DC Paul Harwood said he was satisfied with the sentence. He said: “The sentence given can never take into account the effects [his] actions have had on the victims involved. His callous behaviour in concealing his HIV has changed their lives forever and I can only hope that they can now derive some satisfaction that [he] has been held accountable for his actions.”
 

George House Trust comment

The one year sentence for reckless GBH is the lowest UK sentence yet for a HIV transmission. The maximum is 5 years and most people have had 3 or more years jail. He pleaded guilty and this normally leads to a shorter sentence.

As far as we are aware the defendant did not seek the support and advice of HIV organisations who are expert in these cases. Nor did he seem to have an expert barrister familiar with the most recent cases, none of which led to convictions.

It is also not clear that the Crown Prosecution Service followed their own national policy and guidelines for prosecuting sexually transmitted infections. They are required to be especially careful about any scientific evidence supposedly explaining who infected who. Science can't definitely answer that question. HIV organisations are closely monitoring the Crown Prosecution Service adherence to its own policy and guidelines.

“The prosecutor will need to be satisfied that the complainant did not receive the infection from a third party or that the complainant did not infect the defendant,” it says in the legal guidance for prosecutors. “This means that the prosecutor will need to know about any possibility which is compatible with the scientific evidence that the complainant was infected by a third party. This means enquiries will have to be made about the relevant sexual behaviour and relevant sexual history of the complainant."

Source