Positive Steps Residential Weekends

posted: 11/10/2011

Positive Steps - the social and support group for gay men living with HIV in North Greater Manchester and Lancashire - are organising 3 residential weekends between now and the end of July 2012. The weekends are funded by the Big Lottery Fund and are free to participants.

For more information click here

Please note that these weekends are run by the Positive Steps Group.
George House Trust has no involvement in these weekends either in terms of their organisation or their content

Positive Prevention Conference

posted: 23/05/2011

We are delighted to invite people and organisations already involved in 'Positive Prevention' activities to our free Positive Prevention Conference, in Manchester, Friday 1st July, 10.30 - 4.30pm

The booking form can be downloaded if you Read More below.

Positive Prevention means meeting the support and sexual health needs of people diagnosed with HIV and so reduce the risk of onward HIV transmission.

This conference is only for people and organisations already doing Positive Prevention activities. This might include campaigns against HIV stigma and discrimination.

George House Trust's positive prevention work, for example, provides one to one support, group 'peer support' spaces, five-session courses for newly diagnosed people, and reflective facilitated residential weekends for people who have been diagnosed longer than 12 months. This work and this conference is funded by the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

Share Best Practice and discuss Minimum Standards

This Conference is to share the experience and best practice of organisations and individuals already providing Positive Prevention support to gay men, women, and Africans, and to consider developing minimum standards for Positive Prevention.

Positive Prevention Conference
Friday 1st July 2011, at Ardwick Green North, Manchester M12 6FZ: 5 - 10 minutes walk from Manchester Piccadilly Rail
 

Programme

10.00 Registration & coffee
10.30 Welcomes and Introduction
 

10.45 Involving people living with HIV in positive prevention

• Presentations describing various ways people living with HIV are involved
• Discussion: enabling people living with HIV to challenge providers and commissioners about meeting sexual health needs when people are living with HIV and improving involvement

11.30 Tea & Coffee break
 

11.45 Recipes for positive prevention – what’s needed?
Presentations providing an overview and meeting the specific needs of 3 groups – gay men, women and Africans

• Small Group discussions on the needs of people living with HIV and how best these can be met
• Debate the key elements and the minimum provision of positive prevention that HIV+ people should expect

1pm LUNCH and networking : lunch provided
 

1.45pm Workshops - How do you do it?

• Small groups identify the critical ingredients for effective positive prevention for the three groups - gay men, women and Africans

2.45pm Tea & Coffee break
 

3pm Evidencing & Measuring

Gathering evidence and measuring effectiveness of Positive Prevention activities
 

3.30pm Panel Discussion: Agreeing Minimum Standards and Next Step Recommendations
 

4.20 Closing words
Close at 4.30

Please complete and return this booking form to Colin

Please send all Bookings and Enquiries to Colin

 The Elton John AIDS Foundation has funded this conference

African Film Against Stigma

posted: 11/05/2011

No Blame, No Shame is an epic new HIV health promotion film from the African Health Policy Network (AHPN). The film tackles the taboos and stigma surrounding HIV infection in UK’s African community. No Blame, No Shame features top comedian Gina Yashere, alongside HIV positive UK Africans, in a film made by Angus Malcolm.
 

No Stigma in living with HIV

No Blame, No Shame is an online video that is also available as a DVD, promoting the African Health Policy Network’s Public Faces  campaign, that there is no stigma in living with HIV and that stigmatising attitudes only help spread HIV.
 

Watch No Blame, No Shame here
 

Eunice Sinyemu, Head of Policy and Deputy Chief Executive at AHPN says “We have to challenge the stigma around HIV in the UK's African communities. It stops individuals from getting tested, which means they don’t get the treatment they need, and are more likely to infect others. With Gina’s help, we are confident we can get this message across in a colourful, punchy and accessible way.”
“Gina is much-loved in the African community, and having a big name on board is really going to help us reach our audience.”

Wide distribution

AHPN is promoting the film to reach as many people in the African community as possible, including viral marketing and distribution on DVD, use in training for a wide range of specialists and professionals, faith leaders and communities, local and national policy makers, workers in the health and social care sectors, local and national media.

Read about the comedian Gina Yashere

The film was made by Angus Malcolm, writer and producer. With a background in healthcare, including several years in the AIDS Unit at the Department of Health, Angus specialises in producing low-cost media for the statutory and not-for-profit sectors, especially education and healthcare.

No Blame, No Shame
 

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

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.