Community Education with Purpose
Community Education Programs
Consistent with HIV Alliance’s mission, our community education program uses accurate and factual information to prevent new infections. We work to inform and education everyone, including youth, young adults, adults in treatment, and all other community members. Knowledge is a powerful tool, but it must be applied correctly. Our goal is to equip every participant with the knowledge and skills they need to reduce their likelihood of transmitting an STI.
Youth Education & POZ Speakers
Each year, we reach thousands of public, private, and charter school students across Douglas, Lane, and Marion Counties for free. We know that when young people have access to evidence-based and trustworthy information they will make intelligent and mature decisions regarding their health. Our lessons bring straight forward information to Oregonian youth and emphasize reducing infection and dispelling myths and stigma.
Our youth presentations consider that students of different ages and learning stages may process sexual health information differently. Our presentations are tailored to be age appropriate to youth of different grade levels and understanding.
POZ Speakers are “positive” in many ways, especially in their attitudes! The Education program hosts a small team of HIV+ individuals that are willing to share their personal stories about living with HIV, while also delivering a prevention focused message. These lessons are designed to be interactive and engaging for young audiences. POZ presentations are divided into three main parts: life before their HIV diagnosis, life at diagnosis, and how their life has been altered by HIV. Sometimes these speakers present the HIV 101 information to a class, sometimes they follow an HIV 101 presentation and help to reinforce what was taught. All of our POZ Speakers are trained in age-appropriate presentation techniques and are capable of answering students’ questions.
Each presentation naturally incorporates prevention messages that empower youth to learn from the experience of the speaker. Sample prevention messages include: “it only takes one time, one risky behavior to become infected,” or “it’s not who you are, but what you do that puts you at risk.” HIV Alliance’s POZitively Speaking Program not only aims to present honest, professional, real-life stories that youth can learn from, but to also put a human face to an often-stigmatized population.
“Steve did a great job including the dangers of drinking too much. He also let people know that HIV is not a death sentence and lifestyle can influence someone’s quality of life. I think Steve really helps destigmatize HIV. Many students have come to me to say thank you for bringing Steve in to speak. They were really moved and appreciated his info and honesty. Thank you! This was such a positive experience for everyone.”
“This was an impactful presentation. I would like to discuss having Bo come back next year to present to our whole school. His message of loving yourself and tuning in to our instincts and intuition to keep us out of bad situations is so powerful. I would love for all our students to hear this.”
— Gateways High School, 2017
“[Ernie] Something I noticed in your presentation was the way you reinforce the “your friends might need this information, this is important, and you could be the friend that helps.” This method draws our students in, and helps them feel empowered to share this information with peers. Thank you.”
— Looking Glass Center Point School, 2018
We are currently looking for more HIV-positive individuals to join our POZitively Speaking Program for the upcoming school year. There are certainly many challenges facing youth today and our speakers often get to make a wonderful impact on the youth of our Willamette and Umpqua Valleys. Trainings will include how to develop one’s own personal story while including prevention focused messages, as well as tips and tricks to speaking and engaging with you online in a virtual setting. Reach out to HIV Alliance’s Education Coordinator at education@allianceor.org with any questions and for an invitation!
Our program is age appropriate and provides the tools and resources to complete many of the Oregon’s requirements on comprehensive sexuality education. We consider our program a great supplemental tool for local school teachers.
The Middle School presentation does not assume sexual health foundations and therefore has an overview of anatomical terms and healthy relationships basics.
The High School presentation builds on the assumed information above. We ask each class where they are their “sex-ed” curriculum to gauge how much reinforcement they might need.
In Youth Treatment Centers, we also do not assume all of the basics have been covered, so we take time to reinforce those terms.
The Education Program also reaches local schools’ GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance, or Gender and Sexuality Alliance) groups. The GSA presentation model emphasizes the relevance of this subject matter to the LGBTQ+ community. After presenting on HIV information, we tend to survey students on their own experience in and outside of schools. This can lead to healthy discussions on the need for sex-ed and more inclusive learning content broadly.
Oregon is lucky to offer and require an in-depth look at human sexuality. Without this information, a student may not know how to protect themselves from common STIs (sexually transmitted infections). See Oregon’s Comprehensive Sexuality Education requirements here.
- HIV 101 for 6th and 7th Grades
- HIV 101 for 8th Grade
- HIV 101 for 9th – 12th Grades
- HIV 101 Online
- VIH 101 en españo
Hepatitis C 101
This lesson is delivered to high school-aged youth and adults in treatment programs. It focuses on transmission and prevention of the Hepatitis C Virus (HCV).
The Hepatitis C 101 lecture opens with a brief overview of what hepatitis is, the various types of hepatitis and the many functions of the human liver.
Did you know our livers can regenerate?
This lesson looks at the negative impact of hepatitis on one’s body and also how it negatively impacts Oregon as a state. In 2017, Oregon was ranked as having the highest HCV death rate per capita.
This presentation is primarily designed for older teens and adults due to its focus on the overlap of alcohol/substance use (or abuse) and hepatitis. This lesson introduces and reviews topics on illicit drug use and the harm that can be caused by their use.
One main difference in forms of hepatitis that is discussed in our presentation is the difference between viral hepatitis (caused by viruses like HCV) and non-viral hepatitis (caused by a substance or alcohol): Viral hepatitis is caused by the viruses hepatitis A, B, C, D, or E. Non-viral hepatitis can be caused by toxic damage due to chemical or alcoholic abuse. Non-viral hepatitis can also be caused by an autoimmune disorder.
Hepatitis C 101 Online
Click here to access our Hepatitis C 101 Online course.
Haga clic aquí para Hepatitis C 101 Online en español.
STI 101
HIV Alliance’s Education program offers a Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) Overview as an add-on to the standard HIV 101 or the HCV 101 lessons. We also offer this as a standalone lesson. There are many STIs that are known commonly; there are also many that we may not know how to discuss. The STI 101 lecture looks at the many signs and symptoms of STIs that a person could transmit through unprotected sex. We look at the STIs from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and make sure that young adults know how to avoid transmission. Sexual abstinence is stressed through this lecture, and we offer tools that would make sexual encounters safer as well (e.g., introduction of condoms, lubrication, importance of testing).
STI 101 is age appropriate, offering the basic building blocks of sex-ed to school age students–including consent in a relationship and it’s importance–and STI 101 helps to generate mature conversations with adult audiences. We recognize that many do not feel comfortable with this topic of conversation, which is why we offer our lessons openly and directly. It is understandable that if we don’t talk about certain subjects then they might not be comfortable to discuss, but we hope that all can participate in learning from one another.
STI 101 Online
Click here to access our STI 101 Online course.
Haga clic aquí para STI 101 Online en español.
Harm Reduction Education
For information on harm reduction, including how to identify and respond to an overdose, visit our harm reduction page.
Community Education
HIV Alliance would love to tell you more about us! Our many team members have been approached and hired by many agencies, companies, and groups to share more about the agency, sharing our values, the purpose of our programs, HIV basics, and more.
Whether you’re a company looking to educate employees about bloodborne pathogens, a Rotary group interested in learning about nonprofit community-focused organizations, or a collective of parents and community members seeking information on transmission and prevention, HIV Alliance offers a variety of training sessions, including but not limited to:
- Bloodborne pathogens, like HIV, hepatitis, STI’s
- Free naloxone and opiate overdose awareness training
- Harm reduction philosophy and its practice in agencies like HIV Alliance
- HIV Alliance agency’s purpose, programs, and goals
HIV Alliance Presentation Request Form
Contact Us for More Information
Please do not hesitate to call or email us with any questions or adjustments to our community education curriculum. Our goal is to provide supplemental infectious disease education alongside your school’s existing sexual health unit. Please let us know if you’d like us to tailor these presentations to your audience in any shape or form.
Each presentation is at least 45 minutes. If your classroom times are 45 minutes or less, please let us know so we can adjust our curriculum accordingly. If a 90-minute session is available, schools also have the option of combining two types of presentations into one visit. An effective and popular option is to combine the POZ and HIV 101 presentation. Classes that are limited to an hour session may also schedule us for two different presentations on different days. We have often found that letting students hear from a POZ speaker first gets them more interested and invested in the subject matter when we follow it up with an HIV 101.
We hope you will take advantage of this community education program provided free to schools and help us reach youth with information and prevention messages that can make a difference in their lives.
For more information about our programs, or to schedule a presentation, please contact our Education Coordinator at education@allianceor.org. You can also request a community education presentation by filling out the form at the bottom of this page.
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