BREAKOUT SESSIONS #2
Thursday, June 24th
2:30 - 3:30 PM PST
Room #1: "Conversación con Edúcate Ya Sobre La Salud y Prevención del VIH"
Martha Yesenia Alemán Oliva
Danis C. Atlacatl
Edúcate Ya
​
Description: Since our foundation in 2000, Educate Ya has worked to address health disparities in Portland’s Latinx community. HIV and other sexual health topics have been the primary focus of our Educadores de Salud program, which prepares volunteers to bring accessible, culturally-specific education to Latinx people in community spaces. We believe in promoting inclusivity in advocacy work and providing opportunities for community members to get involved and get connected. Our Educadores de Salud program connects all community members who are interested in advocating for equitable healthcare for Portland's Latinx community, regardless of professional background or experience. Volunteers are trained in the style of popular education, pioneered by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. We believe that by engaging our target audience in conversation, we can encourage real change in the lives of people who may experience cultural barriers to accessing care. In our presentation we will discuss the most up-to-date information on HIV prevention and share our experience working towards improved community wellness. As part of this presentation, w will hold space to explore the experience of Latinx people in the LGBTQ+ community, and how these intersecting identities impact HIV prevention, risk-reduction and other sexual health topics in these demographics. Finally, as a continuation of the work we have been doing (thanks to a grant from the OLLN) around COVID-19 education and prevention, we will touch upon the relationship between HIV and the coronavirus: possibility of increased risk for people who are HIV positive, prevention strategies, and how to reduce stigma surrounding both viruses in our society.
​
Objectives:
-
Identify up-to-date prevention strategies.
-
Access the Latinx LGBTQ+ perspective, so as to develop better options for community care
-
Develop ideas for how to fight stigma in healthcare, and in our communities
-
Identify the relationship between COVID-19 and HIV, so as to encourage the Latinx community to engage in best available practices to keep themselves--and others--safe
Room #2 (Presentation 1) : "Using Participatory Methods to Assess Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (ASRH) Outcomes Among Diverse Youth in Massachusetts"
Elizabeth Salerno Valdez, PhD, MPH.
Aline Gubrium, PhD
University of Massachusetts, School of Public Health and Health Sciences
​
​
Description: Inequities in adolescent sexual health are more prominent in historically marginalized youth and are linked to broader societal disparities such as housing insecurity, food insecurity, poverty, juvenile justice involvement, and lack of access to quality education and healthcare. A research team composed of a community advisory board, a local youth-serving organization, and researchers from the University of Massachusetts, used participatory research methods to examine how structural racism, in combination with other systems of oppression, contributes to inequitable adolescent sexual and reproductive health outcomes for youth of color living in Springfield, MA. We report our findings and end by discussing possibilities for addressing ASRH inequities in light of routinized structural violence experienced by marginalized youth in the community.
​
Objectives:
-
Identify how structural racism and other forms of oppression influence adolescent sexual and reproductive health inequities among youth of color
-
Identify potential solutions to combat structural racism and other forms of oppression as a means to improve adolescent sexual and reproductive health inequities
Room #2 (Presentation 2) : "HIV Care Retention and Transnationalism: Lessons from PROYECTO PROMOVER"
Patricia Aguado, PhD, LCSW
Department of Social Work, Northeastern Illinois University
​
Description: From 2013-2019, we were funded by HRSA-SPNS to develop a culturally tailored, transnational intervention for Latino@s living with HIV with the goal of keeping people retained in HIV care. This was the first time there was an intentional effort being made by a government agency to think through how to meet the needs of Latin@s, and specifically, a Latino@ subpopulation, as it is well known that there are large and nuanced differences depending on what Latin American country you are from, and where within the country you grew up. Moreover, an individual born in another country who migrates to the U.S. has a series of social and structural challenges that impact their ability to stay engaged in HIV care. The large foreign-born Mexican population, who on average are poorer, more likely to face language-related barriers, and more likely to lack immigration documentation and health insurance experience barriers to care and inferior HIV-related outcomes. Factors such as lack of HIV knowledge, health care practices carried over from Mexico, work schedules, Machismo, stigma related to homosexuality, and internalized homophobia also present challenges to the retention of individuals living with HIV. As one of the largest county public health clinics within the country and the largest in the City of Chicago, we developed a one-on-one patient navigation intervention targeting individuals of Mexican origin and embedded this intervention within a highly functional one-stop shop with a long history of bilingual care.
​
Objectives:
-
Define transnationalism and discuss why this concept is critical to creating programs that help support Mexicans stay engaged in HIV care.
-
Describe our one-on-one patient navigation model designed for Mexicans living in Chicago.
-
Apply knowledge gained from this presentation to incorporate transnational goals in the development and implementation of interventions designed to keep Mexicans living with HIV in an Urban American context engaged in HIV care.
-
Seek support from conference attendees to further refine tools and transnational framework to continue
Room #3: " Protect Our Children, A Program to Assist in the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse"
Liliana Will, DDS MPH
Bilingual Project Coordinator Consultant
Protect Our Children - a project of The Ford Family Foundation
​
Description: Since 2015, The Ford Family Foundation has partnered with nonprofit organizations throughout Oregon (and Siskiyou County, CA.) to make the nationally acclaimed, research and trauma-informed Stewards Of Children curriculum from Darkness To Light available to adults and their communities. Stewards of Children trainings offer participants the knowledge, skills, and tools to prevent, recognize, and react responsibly to child sexual abuse. To date, 14 sites (covering 30 counties) have trained over 23,000 adults. Workshop participants will learn about The Foundation's Protect Our Children initiative and outcomes of the robust evaluation performed by University of Oregon's Center for the Prevention of Abuse & Neglect (CPAN). The presentation includes an overview of the Stewards of Children training and several other topic-specific trainings and tools available free or low-cost to enhance child protection policies and procedures. Participants will learn how to connect their staff, volunteers, parents, and communities to the local programs providing these trainings. CPAN will present an outcome overview from 4+ years of extensive data collected from training participants and communities as well as the development evaluation process. This is the first rural-focused statewide evaluation of Stewards of Children and researchers utilized pre and post-surveys, a 6, 12, & 18 month longitudinal study, a comparison group study, and focus groups in both English and Spanish. In addition to presenting child sexual abuse prevention tools, resource, implementation, and evaluation data, our team seeks to capture and respond to the expressed needs of local program staff, parents, and communities so that our work can best serve those needs and protect all of our children.
​
Objectives:
-
Reinforce child sexual abuse prevention knowledge/tools.
-
Update of sexual abuse prevention/awareness efforts and partners in Oregon (availability of partners & resources)
-
Learn how to prevent, recognize, and react responsibly to child sexual abuse.
-
Understanding of SOC participant outcomes evaluation methodology and outcomes to date
Room #4: "Transforming the Community: Using Principles of Cultural Humility and Cultural Responsiveness to Create Sustainable Leadership From Within Our Communities"
Adriana Dibello
Steven Vargas
Advancement of Mexican American's (AAMA)
​
Description: This session will cover strategies and activities the Association for the Advancement of Mexican American's (AAMA) Minorities Action Program (MAP) has engaged to help our East End residents and Latinx community in Houston as a whole. Our Panel will share past and current work from the perspective of young adults, People with HIV and staff. Presenters will also address the collaborations with task forces, community and governmental organizations.
​
Objectives:
-
Identify the social determinants and inequities challenging the community
-
Developing strategies to mitigate social inequities
-
Implementing and evaluating strategies for effectiveness
-
Sharing what we learned