Playing Defense and Offense
April 13, 2011 in President's Message
by Mark Ishaug, President and CEO
AIDS United
Can you walk a tightrope while preparing for the fight of your life? Sometimes you simply have no choice. In just the last month, AIDS United has had to become even more politically agile while making ourselves programmatically stronger. While the HIV/AIDS epidemic continues to rage on in our country, impacting our nation’s most vulnerable communities, we are working in overdrive to prevent devastating budget cuts that would dismantle health care reform, eliminate signatures programs like AmeriCorps and the Social Innovation Fund, and reinstate the ban on federally-funded syringe exchange programs. And the budget talks for FY 2012 are only just beginning to heat up.
Hundreds of millions of dollars for critical domestic HIV/AIDS programs are at risk at a time when we can afford no losses. More important, the lives of the people we serve are at risk. We must fight for the full implementation of the Affordable Care Act. We must step up our efforts to ensure the success of the National HIV/AIDS strategy. And we must develop new public-private partnerships that will help us reduce HIV infections, increase access to care and eliminate health disparities.
AIDS United is playing defense and offense, and maximizing all of our organizational strengths and skills to be the leanest, smartest and strongest asset we can be in the fight to end AIDS in America. We are adapting, changing, and honing every day.
- At its first official meeting since becoming AIDS United, the Board of Trustees embarked on the development of a three-year strategic plan, which will align AIDS United’s goals with those of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy.
- We unveiled a new Community Partnership model at the 2011 annual meeting, which will support community-based programs to (1) strengthen systems, (2) seed and measure innovation, and (3) organize and lead policy/advocacy efforts. We asked Community Partners to join with us in thinking even more creatively and strategically about how we might break down HIV/AIDS silos. We began to expand our ideas of how we can more effectively help the people we serve by focusing on the myriad of co-existing conditions that contribute to HIV’s transmission.
- At the first Access to Care grantee convening, AIDS United mobilized grantees supported by Bristol-Myers Squibb, Walmart and the Social Innovation Fund, providing them with the educational and skills-building opportunities they need to advance successfully to the next phase of their respective projects. Grantees rolled up their sleeves for substantive, productive and sometimes difficult discussions about participant recruitment, evaluation, and fundraising.
- AIDS United awarded $1.4 million dollars to 29 organizations to promote the development and expansion of local advocacy networks in nine Southern states – one of the regions in our country hardest hit by the epidemic.
So will we defend programs that work and save lives? Yes we will! Will we fight for new public and private resources for innovative, evidence-based projects? Absolutely! And will we succeed? We have no choice. And we can only do all this and more with you. So join us today! Donate to AIDS United, call your legislators, sign up for action alerts, friend us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter. AIDS United, and people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS, are counting on you.
A Call For Collaboration and Advocacy: the Community Partnership Model Evolves
April 4, 2011 in Community Partnerships
by Christine Wasik
Community AIDS Partnership of the Capital Region
Albany, NY
Another wonderful AIDS United Community Partnership Meeting! Thanks so much to AIDS United and the AIDS Foundation of Chicago for their hospitality. It is so helpful to get together with other Partnerships and find out the new and innovative things people are doing as well as share with each other the similar challenges we are facing. We are all struggling with decreases in funding and donor fatigue, especially in the area of HIV/AIDS. People have been working so hard for so many years to end AIDS in their communities and it seems that it is harder and harder to get people’s attention about the issue.
Over the past two years AU has been stressing the importance of collaboration and advocacy. After last week’s meeting I believe we have some clear direction to begin discussing and implementing much needed changes to our Partnership. I now feel prepared to take some of the concepts we have been discussing for the past two years and strategize ways to make them work locally. The support from AU has always been top notch but after this meeting I am especially confident to tackle a new partnership model. AU seems to understand that, as they are, the Partnerships are finding their way through this process. It is evident that AU is prepared to support us patiently along the way and assist us in achieving shared goals even if we all get there on slightly different paths.
Thanks so much again for a great meeting!
Love Me Tender: Team NOLA Flirts with Bondage
in AmeriCorps
Having already walked dogs at the animal rescue, weeded a sculpture garden, and repaired a house destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, Team NOLA next decided to volunteer at a bondage education night. On February 16th, Team NOLA volunteered at the New Orleans Gay Men’s Wellness Center’s inaugural event– “Love Me Tender: Flirting with Bondage the Proper Way”.
The Wellness Center is a project of the Louisiana Office of Public Health which focuses on promoting health in all aspects of the body, mind, and spirit. Team NOLA member Brandon, who serves as an Americorps member at the Wellness Center, planned and organized “Love Me Tender”. At this event, attendees were educated on safe bondage practices as well as offered free, rapid HIV testing.
The event took place on the second floor of John Paul’s, a gay bar located in a beautiful house in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans. Team NOLA arrived an hour early to help set up the event.
Brandon opened the event with an exercise to break the ice. A volunteer stood with his/her back to the audience. Then Brandon held up a word and the audience gave clues to the volunteer to help him/her guess the word. All volunteers were awarded prizes, such as condoms or a copy of Rough Trade, an anthology of gay S&M erotica.
Next, local masseuse and bondage expert Patrick Tyrus gave a talk about safe bondage practices. Some of the topics he covered were the best knots and ropes to use, basic safety rules, and the importance of communication.
After a short break, Tyrus gave a live demonstration of all the topics he had just discussed. He tied up a woman who had previously arranged to volunteer and demonstrated different ways to use spanking, chopsticks, and clothespins in one’s bondage practice. After some Q&A, the event was over. Some audience members took the opportunity to have Tyrus demonstrate a few rope ties on them.
The event was a success. The small room was bursting with about 35 attendees, 3 of whom were tested for HIV and all of whom were educated on safe bondage practices.
It’s Time To Defend and Protect Health Care Reform!
March 25, 2011 in Policy/Advocacy
By James Schneidewind, Public Policy Associate
On March 23, 2010, President Obama lifted his pen and signed into law The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), and forever changed the way the U.S. cares for the health needs of its citizens. Passage of the Act marked an historical resolution by our government to make good on its compact with the people to offer quality and affordable health care to all citizens, not just a privileged few. A year later, we have watched as campaigns for and against the law have raged, listened as debate in Congress over the law has been resurrected due to Republican repeal bills, and witnessed a change in the way health care is distributed in the country as provisions from the law have gone into effect.
Despite the misinformation and confusion associated with the ACA, we know and have known that millions of uninsured and vulnerable Americans will have access to health care and insurance as a result of its passage. We know that many of the health disparities in the United States that run along racial, ethnic, geographical, and income lines will be reduced or even eliminated by this law. We also know that it will become the base for expanding coverage in the future, offering more benefits to those in need and, we hope, making the United States the healthiest country in the world. This enormous potential is understood by most politicians, pundits, and citizens from across the political spectrum.
Unfortunately, as debate over the ACA has been reignited by Republican efforts in Congress to repeal the law, we find ourselves recycling old arguments and talking points from 2009 and 2010. Our public dialogue has not evolved as benefits have kicked in, facts from reputable sources have emerged, and Americans have begun telling their stories about how they have benefitted from the ACA. We do not live in the same climate as we did two years ago, nor do we face the same challenges. It is time for our discourse on health care reform to evolve.
In March 2011, according to a Gallup poll, 13% of Americans see the federal debt as the most important problem facing our nation, more than at any other point in the last 10 years. In response, a small group of Senators and other leaders have pledged to look at sustainable and long-term plans to reduce the deficit as opposed to focusing on immediate, superficial budget fixes that do little to alleviate our deficit strains. This makes staying the course with the ACA much more germane. In January, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), an unbiased and nonpartisan agency that makes projections on the federal debt and estimates on the cost of legislation, issued a report that shows repeal of the ACA would add $230 billion to the federal debt over the next decadeand leave 32 million more Americans uninsured, according to a preliminary analysis. It also found that repeal would add $1.2 trillion in the second decade after passage. Last year, the CBO estimated that the ACA would reduce the deficit by $143 billion by 2019. These are real facts and figures that cast the cost-effectiveness of health care reform in a different light than the information available to us a year ago.
A year ago, many Americans were confused about how the ACA would benefit them due in part to misleading and unsubstantiated claims made by many in regards to health care reform. A year later, Americans are still confused and divided on the issue, according to a recent poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The poll finds that public approval and disapproval ratings of the law are about even, showing that roughly 46% of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of the health care reform law while 42% felt favorably about it, compared with 46% and 40% respectively in April of 2010. However, when broken down by individual provisions, the law is overwhelmingly popular. Eighty-two percent of Americans want to keep the tax credits to small businesses; 76% want to keep the provision that gradually closes the Medicare “doughnut hole”; 74% want to keep requirements that guarantee the issuance of insurance to all citizens regardless of health, income or age; 72% want to keep the provision that affords financial help for low and moderate income Americans in need of coverage; and a somewhat surprising 58% want to keep the provision that increases the Medicare payroll tax on the wealthy. It is now clear in March of 2011 that more Americans than ever before like the contents of this law, if not the name of the law itself or the confusing rhetoric surrounding it.
As we move forward with the implementation of the ACA, let’s move the debate forward as well. Let’s avoid the wasteful back and forth made up of hypothetical what-ifs that are intended to confuse Americans and stick to the established facts and real stories. A year into the process it’s time to talk less about how people will benefit and more about how they have already benefited. Most importantly, it’s time to DEFEND and PROTECT the ACA from repeal efforts.
Visit Healthcare.gov’s “Better Benefits, Better Care” page to see specifically how health care reform has benefitted small businesses, seniors, young adults, women, and all Americans in general with the Patient Protection Act.
Read how the ACA will specifically benefit people living with HIV/AIDS.
Hear personal stories of people who have already reaped the benefits of the ACA, highlighted by an under-graduate student from my Alma Mater, Michigan State University!
The Time is Now
March 21, 2011 in Access2Care
by Will Rutland, Montgomery AIDS Outreach
It is a bittersweet thing to leave an environment so charged with hope in order to carry that hope into the world. And yet, today, that is what we did: today we left the comforting confines of the Pere Marquette convening space. Today we began the task of translating our respective aspirations into action beyond the walls of our hotel meeting room, appropriately called “Storyville III.”
Fortunately, AIDS United sent us out well-armed. In addition to the powerful programs and presentations given over the last few days (and let’s be fair, the St. Patty’s revelry down Rue Bourbon was a whimper in comparison to the thunderous message of WORLD founder Rebecca Denison’s moving film about her beloved HIV doctor), we concluded the convening with small group conversations focused on: evaluation, the peer model, and social networking.
After digging into our respective areas of interest, we reconvened in front of our able captains from AIDS United, Maura Riordan and Suzanne Kinsky, and continued a dialogue regarding how best to stay connected as we embark on our shared, separate adventures. Having collectively determined that: (1) too many emails are bad for the soul, and (2) we really should more seriously consider a convening in Hawaii, the time had come to say goodbye.
For our Montgomery group, that means the time is *now* to begin the work of bringing crucial care to those outside the practical boundaries of the traditional model; the time is now to begin reaching the previously unreachable; the time is now to begin amplifying the impact of our efforts through technology. The time is now to do more.
And so, with heartfelt hugs, vigorous handshakes, and one or two quickly-covered sniffles, we bid each other farewell – parting company a little more certain that after this hopeful (if trepidation-tinged) week, we can do this. Together, we can do this.
And so we begin . . .
California Dreaming
March 18, 2011 in Access2Care
by Liz Brosnan, Executive Director, Christie’s Place, San Diego, CA
As I read my colleague’s wonderful blog yesterday citing her “enthusiastic trepidation,” Michael Jackson’s song “You Are Not Alone” rang through my head. A moment later I envisioned all 80 convening participants covering that song as a Glee spoof. Naturally, I was leading the chorus as Glee’s substitute teacher Holly Holliday, so adeptly played by Gwyneth Paltrow. While I’m a far cry from Gwyneth, a girl can dream . . . heck, a girl should dream.
The convening commenced with welcoming remarks from AIDS United President & CEO Mark Ishaug. His energy and enthusiasm quickly became contagious and light surfaced at the end of the ominous match tunnel. Day one built solidarity amongst grantees as well as bridged communities from across the country through networking, sharing best practices and strategies. The richness of experience and expertise is best expressed via an excerpt from a poem written by a positive man shared in a documentary this afternoon: “Are you inspired? You should be.”
As we roll up our sleeves even more on day two of the convening, there are a few things that resonate most with me. Rebecca Denison, WORLD Founder, discussed the ingredients that help keep people in care in her talk entitled “The Art of Keeping People in Care.” In a nutshell, that is the essence of this ambitious Access to Care Initiative (A2C). She emphasized the power of the peer, a strategy that is pervasive amongst grantees. I found myself surprisingly excited about evaluation (please don’t stop reading here – it’s really not a dirty word). The national evaluation, an effort led by John Hopkins University, will lift up our work by measuring our collective impact on individuals, systems and communities. Finally, as we embark on the era of healthcare reform, we are uniquely positioned to lead the way. We are pioneers transforming healthcare through this initiative.
A2C represents the power to ignite change through innovation. As we create new pathways to care and strengthen existing ones, it is clear to me that this work will not only build healthier communities, it will also produce models that will be replicated in other sectors.
As a Walmart and Social Innovation Fund (SIF) grantee from San Diego, CA, this initiative has been a game changer for Christie’s Place – and that’s putting it mildly. In San Diego County an alarming 69% of HIV+ women who know their status are not in care. With A2C support we now have the resources to reach those women as well as engage and retain them in care with cutting-edge strategies and by improving our service delivery system. Up until six months ago, I could only dream about having the resources to be able to address and reduce the unmet need that exists for women. SIF is about dreaming, dreaming big. More than that, it’s about turning those dreams into reality. It is turning our “what if” into our “what is.” After all, a girl can dream . . . a girl should dream.