Project Title: Health Action Research Team (HART).

Grantee: Health Initiatives for Youth (HIFY)

Location: San Francisco, CA

Phone 415.487.5777; Fax 415.487.5771

Project Director: Steven Tierney, Ed.D.

Category: Sub-Category (B); (peer-based social and practical support services).

Adolescents Targeted: HIV positive and at-risk young people ages 12-25 from diverse racial, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Problem Statement: Adolescents and young adults are at very high risk of HIV infection because of profound developmental and cognitive changes during this time of life. Psychosocial support services that are attuned to the needs of HIV positive and high-risk youth are lacking, as are innovative programs to develop young people's leadership skills and self-efficacy.

Service Delivery Model: The HIFY Youth Services Team is an integrated set of youth-centered service and skill-building programs. The goals of the project are: 1) To enhance the quality of life for HIV-infected and -affected youth people through peer-based skill building, education, training, and support; 2) To develop the capacity of organizational and community systems that deal with HIV/AIDS to respond effectively and sensitively to the needs of HIV-infected and affected youth. The principal objectives are to provide skills-building and training for teams of peer educators who in turn educate other young people about HIV prevention, testing and care along with other related youth health threats; and to enable these peer educators to influence local, regional and national decision-making bodies in the development of youth-sensitive policies. The project is innovative because it tests the limits of "youth empowerment" by placing the primary responsibility for programs in the hands of young program coordinators, who are themselves confronting the painful realities of the epidemic.

Accomplishments: In each of its first three project years, the HIV+ Youth Speakers' Bureau has educated thousands of young people and key decision makers. HIFY's Young Women's Health Team has empowered dozens of at-risk young women to take charge of their health through intensive, multi-session workshops. HIFY's National Advocacy Team has developed the National Alliance of Positive Youth (NAPY) and produced quarterly publications by and for HIV+ young people. In addition to these ongoing activities, the Youth Services Team has brought more than a thousand young people together at two "Unity Jams," day-long events offering health policy leadership development and rap sessions on HIV and other urgent health people from across the country for a two-week intensive training to develop skills for implementing youth-for-youth HIV program intervention in their own communities.

Continuing Activities: All of the activities outlined above will be continued or expanded in the next two years, with an emphasis on enhanced evaluation and dissemination of the project.

Evaluation: The Measurement Group (TMG) will work with HIFY's young employees to develop tools for participant driven research that will set a new standard for qualitative evaluation of programming targeting young people. The major variables to be examined include the effectiveness of all project activities at improving knowledge and self-efficacy among youth; increases in HIV testing and utilization of related medical and psychosocial services; increased job skills and employability among youth program participants; an increases in youth input into policy-making bodies. The newly developed evaluation tools will be highly applicable to evaluation of other youth programming, and will complement the cross-site evaluations already conducted by TMG.

Dissemination: HIFY's Health Action Research Team members will coordinate and make presentations at a wide range of local, regional and national conferences and workshops, and will continue to serve on planning councils, advisory boards and other policy groups. The team members will also continue to develop trainings and publications for young people and their service providers, and will initiate contacts with electronic and print media.