Are you a woman at risk?

The Women’s Collective poses this question to every woman we encounter. It’s not an easy question to think about or an easy one to answer. HIV/AIDS is still, for many, a difficult issue to talk about. Too often the voices we hear and the faces we see in HIV/AIDS prevention messages do not reflect us or our communities. This is why The Women’s Collective developed an HIV Prevention program shaped by and for women, with an emphasis on women of color. Our prevention services take into consideration the fact that the experience or reality of one person does not and cannot represent all. The fact that AIDS is the number one killer of African American women ages 25-34 underscores our prevention program: women need to be educated and empowered to understand and practice their safer sex decisions and know their HIV status.

TWC provides all services free of charge.

• HIV Counseling, Testing and Referral Services
  The Women’s Collective encourages all women to know their HIV status by offering them women-focused HIV 101 education, a variety of safer sex resources, and free and confidential HIV counseling and testing. We believe that early detection of HIV infection is extremely important in ensuring long, healthy lives of persons living with HIV. This allows women to get into care and treatment early, when it is most beneficial. For women who may be pregnant, early detection of HIV infection and entry into care can help to prevent the transmission of the virus to their babies. For women who test HIV negative, we encourage the maintenance of safer sex behaviors, use of safer sex resources, and support a woman’s ability to strengthen and/or create effective strategies for preventing HIV infection over her lifespan.
  
  Walk-in to our office at 1331 Rhode Island Ave., NE, (in the Brentwood Village Shopping center) Monday through Friday from 9 am – 5 pm for your free HIV test, safer sex brochures, condoms and other informational resources.
  
  Outreach and testing at TWC has resumed for September 2010. Check out our calendar.
  The Women’s Collective provides HIV counseling, testing and referral services that include:
  
  • CDC trained HIV prevention counselors;
  • Ora Quick Advance rapid HIV testing;
  • Women-focused counseling and referral services
  • Free and confidential testing;
  • Travel tokens to enable clients to access free testing and/or return for their results
  • On site case-management and support services for women who test HIV positive;
  • On site comprehensive risk counseling and services for women who test HIV negative;
  • No appointment is necessary to receive services at the agency’s office;
  • Compassionate, peer-based environment tailored to the needs of women.
  

• SisterAct Institute: Comprehensive Prevention for Girls and Young Women Ages 12-25
  The SisterAct Institute engages urban, at-risk African American women ages 12-25 in HIV/AIDS prevention education sessions that establish and/or increase effective communication about sexual health; provide women opportunities to know their serostatus; and address the age, gender, cultural, spiritual, and language specific needs of our community regarding women’s sexual health, particularly as it pertains to HIV/AIDS prevention in order to decrease their risks for HIV disease overall. The SisterAct Institute educates and empowers, promotes intergenerational African American women’s perspectives and solutions, encourages women to speak of their experience across the life-span of sexuality, and reaches women “where they are.” 

SisterAct is a 10 session group level intervention that combines the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) effective intervention Sisters Informing Sisters on Topics about AIDS (SISTA) with TWC’s own unique curriculum that incorporates the needs and issues of intergenerational African American women. The SisterAct curriculum increases knowledge of HIV disease among cross generations of African American girls and women; increases knowledge sharing about HIV transmission, prevention and care, and other sexual and women’s health topics with the ultimate goal of reducing HIV infection among this cross section of women. SisterAct reinforces this goal by distributing resources about related health resources and facilitating access to services including HIV counseling, testing and referral services.

• Prevention with Positives (PWP) Program
  Enhancing the health and well being of women living with HIV/AIDS while reducing their risk for STD and HIV co-infection through group interventions and individual comprehensive risk counseling and services. Find out more about the program here.
  
  
• HIV 101 and Prevention Training and Technical Assistance
  The Women’s Collective provides training and education to organizations, and social service agencies locally, nationally and internationally that want to develop or enhance their prevention services to better serve women, particularly women of color. We conduct presentations for a wide range of agencies, organizations and community groups in an effort to increase basic knowledge and prevention skills and sense of empowerment when it comes to understanding our bodies and health as women and ability to make safer sex decisions for ourselves.
  
  Presentation sites have included schools, sororities, shelters, community organizations, church groups, substance abuse treatment centers, among others. Presentations are also made to various agencies that serve women and wish to enhance or refine their programs or explore new approaches to service delivery. These presentations may take place at national conferences, international forums or at a variety of public community meetings. We have also provided training for other peer education programs and outreach programs targeting women.
  
  In addition, we have provided training for medical and other staff members of shelters and substance abuse treatment facilities. The collaborations we establish with other organizations are always voluntary and are designed to benefit both the provider and recipient agencies and the public optimally.
  
  
• Fighting for Our Lives (FFOL)
  Fighting for Our Lives (FFOL) is a periodic conference, organized by The Women’s Collective, that aims to promote primary and secondary prevention and early intervention strategies among women living with and at risk for HIV/AIDS in the District of Columbia, with emphasis on Black women. FFOL aims to integrate prevention with positives and care and treatment information that meets the medical, psychosocial and mental health care needs of women. More than 375 women have attended FFOL since its inception in 1997. In 2004 this conference was sponsored wholly or in part by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the District of Columbia, Department of Health HIV/AIDS Administration (HAA). Plans are being made for the next FFOL conference.