Family, Community, Faith, & Social Services Partnering to Better Serve

Presenter Information

Elizabeth Brown, Georgia Regents UniversityFollow
Shirin Khazvand, Georgia Regents UniversityFollow
Thomas M. Toomey, Georgia Regents UniversityFollow

Abstract

This session will discuss the benefits of family, community, faith based organizations, social services programs and providers partnering in service. Despite its importance, there are barriers that may inhibit partnering among these services. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss their current challenges with establishing partnerships and share solutions for navigating those challenges.

Proposal Summary

Disparities exist among HIV positive individuals that become more apparent in rural communities who often lack readily available services which provide prevention and intervention. Our objective is to facilitate a session, where service providers from multiple backgrounds can have the opportunity to discuss challenges they may face when reaching out to partner with different services in their communities. By exposing the challenges many service providers may face in these situations, they can then collaborate to effectively develop solutions for forming partnerships that may better serve their particular populations. This workshop will operate under the understanding that partnering among multiple services can be very beneficial to serving at-risk populations. Even though service providers may want to form these much-needed partnerships, certain barriers may exist that may hinder collaboration, which may include: 1. Lack of programs existing in rural communities 2. Timeframe of grants, not concurrent with other grass root programs 3. Case managers not trained in social service fields 4. Not enough staff to allot time to go out in the community 5. Programs may experience high turn-over rates with staff resulting in loss of contact person Participants will be asked to identify current barriers, if any, when forming partnerships, and collaborate with the other attendees in developing solutions. The literature describes several approaches (vertical, horizontal, and service) by which integration occur. Workshop facilitators will provide their own experiences working within a vertical model—one that integrates care at different levels— while also providing insights from their own experiences or training in linking at-risk and HIV-positive individuals into healthcare, in a low-resource community consisting of an HIV-positive population predominantly of African American women. In identifying the issues within our own program, we can join in the conversation that no single program can provide a complete framework for others to follow. By sharing challenges and solutions to obtaining partnerships with one another in this workshop, we hope to encourage attendees to apply and build upon these solutions when seeking partnerships. By attempting to overcome these barriers to seeking partnerships, providers can more effectively serve their populations.

Relevance And Significance

Our workshop presentation relates to track #3 “Family and Community” and #4 “Advocacy.” Recognizing the culture and challenges in rural populations and communities affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, forming partnerships with services will help to address individual needs on multiple levels. This workshop is creating an opportunity for service providers to get numerous perspectives from other attendees on the challenges they face, and solutions to addressing these challenges so as to overcome the barriers to forming these partnerships. Through our success with current and previous community grants, we understand individual programs are limited in the direct services they are able to provide to their clients, thus emphasizing the need for partnerships among many services. Through our current experiences with SHE PREVAILS, we have faced challenges as well as overcome barriers in learning effective ways of addressing issues such as inequalities, stigma, and discrimination that ultimately affect a wide range of individuals living with HIV. In an attempt to most effectively advocate for individuals living with HIV, this workshop hopes to encourage partnering among attendees in order to encourage partnering in the multidisciplinary field of social services.

Session Format

Workshop

Keywords

Family, Community, Faith, Partnering, Unity

Publication Type and Release Option

Presentation (Open Access)

Recommended Citation

Brown, Elizabeth; Khazvand, Shirin; and Toomey, Thomas M., "Family, Community, Faith, & Social Services Partnering to Better Serve" (2015). 9th Annual Rural HIV Research and Training Conference (2014-2019). 4.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/ruralhiv/2015/2015/4