Health Initiatives for Youth (HIFY) is an innovative organization that provides health-related services for and by young people. Its SPNS Program initiative targets HIV-positive and at-risk young people ages 14 to 25 from diverse racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. HIFY’s Youth Services program offers an integrated set of youth-centered services and skills-building programs. The goals of the project are to enhance the quality of life for HIV-infected and affected youth through peer-based skills-building, education, training, and support, and to develop the capacity of organizational and community systems that deal with HIV/AIDS to effectively and sensitively meet the needs of HIV-infected and affected youth.

From December 1993 through April 1997, HIFY enrolled 136 young men and 164 young women. The percentage of clients identifying participation in various risk behaviors at any point in their lives are illustrated in the chart on the left.

Program administrators of HIFY recruit, assess the skills of, and provide ongoing training to eight HIV infected and affected members of HIFY’s Health Action Research Team (HART). The team of peer educators is trained to educate other youth about HIV prevention, testing, and care. This training enables peer educators to influence local, regional, and national decision-making bodies in the development of youth-sensitive policies. Between December 1, 1996 and September 30, 1997, the HART team facilitated 164 lectures and group prevention sessions that provided education to 15,784 young people under the age of 25 who were at high risk for HIV infection.

HIFY’s belief in the importance of youth-driven and youth-centered programming has been its hallmark since its inception. HIFY developed the National Alliance of Positive Youth, and, as of December 1997, had produced eight quarterly issues (17,101 in circulation) of Reality, the only magazine designed and written by and for HIV-positive youth. Reality decreases the isolation many HIV-positive youth face by motivating them to become involved in fighting the epidemic on both personal and community levels. The Youth Services program has brought an estimated 1,832 young people together at three "Unity Jams" — day-long events offering health policy leadership development and rap sessions on HIV and other urgent health problems. Additionally, HIFY’s Leaders Internship Program for HIV-positive youth brought together 11 young people from across the country for a two-week intensive skills-building training to implement youth-for-youth HIV program interventions in their home communities.

In keeping with HIFY’s philosophy of youth involvement at every level, much of the evaluation for this project has been conducted by youth. Evaluators at The Measurement Group work with the HART Team staff to help identify talented young people and train them in basic evaluation skills. HART Team members in collaboration with TMG have: 1) developed their own designs for evaluating the various skill-building trainings; 2) developed 9 questionnaires, sets of focus group questions, and interview questions to be used within the evaluation design; 3) facilitated the data collection process; 4) entered data from all procedures in a form suitable for statistical analysis; and 5) are preparing to do formal statistical analyses.

For more information contact Steven Tierney, Ed.D., Health Initiatives for Youth, 1242 Market Street, 3^rd Floor, San Francisco, California 94102, 415.487.5777, stierney@hify.com.

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