Updated SAFE SPACES power point. How to make your non profit a SAFE SPACE for HIV Treatment and Prevention.

1. The need for Safer Spaces in
HIV Prevention and Care
Among Marginalized,
Criminalized, and Oppressed
Communities
Lindsay Roth & Kahn Miller of
Is it ?

2. Has there ever been a time when a client
left your organization and you weren’t
sure why?

3. Who We Are,
What We Do
All volunteer, grassroots direct-service and advocacy organization
for women in Philadelphia’s street-based sex trade
Kensington:
• One of the poorest neighborhoods in Philadelphia with
prominent open air markets for heroin, powder and rock
cocaine, street-based sex trade
• Philadelphia has HIV/AIDS rate three times higher than national
average
Barriers to care are material, social, and structural

4. • Late Night Street Outreach
• Bad Date Alerts
• Home Deliveries
• Case Management
• Health & Safety Tips
• Overdose Response Training
• Rape and Assault Referrals
• Women Identified-Only Drop-In
Our Services:

5. What is Harm
Reduction?

6. What is Harm
Reduction?
• A public health theory addressing
behaviors that carry risk.
• We all do things we know are bad for us,
and only the individual can decide what
measures to take to mitigate harm
• Those who engage in these behaviors
should have a leading voice in any
organization or program they utilize

7. • Meeting people where they are at
• Non-judgmental
• Community involvement and leadership
• Addresses material needs and structural
oppressions simultaneously

8. This is a safer space
A big thanks to SWOP- NYC/SWANK for sharing their guidelines
• Confidentiality: What’s shared here stays here,
what’s learned here leaves here.
• One Mic
• Make Room, Make Noise
• Ouch/Oops
• It’s okay if you feel uncomfortable
• If you don’t know - ask!
• Speak from the “I”
• Please do not record this presentation (slide
show with bibliography and notes will be made
available)
Some guidelines

9. Workshop Objectives
• Define Safe Space and connection to harm
reduction philosophy
• Why they are an effective and necessary tool in
HIV prevention and treatment
• How to create and maintain a safe space
• What do you want to take away?

10. Intended Audience
Providers:
D/A Counselors,
Case Mangers,
Doctors, RNs,
Social Workers,
Therapists,
Researchers,
Supervisors, HIV
Testers &
Counselors
People:
Just because
you might not
have letters after
your name, this
is for you too!
Lived experience
cannot be
overvalued.

11. What else makes a
space “safe”?
• Area or forum where a marginalized group is
free of standard stereotypes, discrimination,
and tactics of silencing
• Physically safe: free from sources of physical
and institutional violence, i.e. law enforcement
• These are guidelines: “trolling” should not be
tolerated

12. Good for At-Risk
Communities
• Skill share/peer education
• Ownership and self-
actualization, especially
for extremely
marginalized/criminalized
populations and those
with intersecting
oppressions
• Decreases isolation from
prevention resources
Why safe spaces are an effective and
necessary tool for HIV prevention & care

13. Good for Organizations
• Community involvement
builds trust
• Builds knowledge of lived
experience and on-the-
ground realities where
research falls short -
especially situations that
are a product of structural
issues
• Narrows the gap between
provider and participant
Why safe spaces are an effective and
necessary tool for HIV prevention & care

14. Good for Organizations
• Community involvement
builds trust
• Builds knowledge of lived
experience and on-the-
ground realities where
research falls short -
especially situations that
are a product of structural
issues
• Narrows the gap between
provider and participant
Good for At-Risk
Communities
• Skill share/peer education
• Ownership and self-
actualization, especially
for extremely
marginalized/criminalized
populations and those
with intersecting
oppressions
• Decreases isolation from
prevention resources
Why safe spaces are an effective and
necessary tool for HIV prevention & care

15. Sonagachi Project, Kolkata, India
3 Rs: respect for sex work and those involved in
it; reliance on sex workers to run the program;
recognition of sex workers’ rights. Condom use
rose from 27% in 1992 to 86% in 2001; HIV
prevalence in sex workers dropped.

16. Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network (CAAN)
While Aboriginal Peoples make up 3.8% of the population, they
accounted for 12.5% of all new HIV infections in Canada. A
federal initiative to address HIV/AIDS prioritized positive Aboriginal
women through the use of safe spaces:
• Use and create opportunities for culturally competent, arts-
based approaches to HIV prevention, such as drum-making,
ceremonial skirt-making, and digital storytelling
• Make gathering spaces as inclusive as possible, creating
spaces for children and attending to barriers to participation
• Recognize that women are part of a larger community, offer
opportunities for women to learn alongside their families,
partners and children
• Honor the sacred role of Aboriginal women by learning about
and celebrating women’s traditional cultural roles

17. The Stonewall Project, San Francisco
Screenshot from www.tweaker.org

18. Positive Prevention Efforts
Safe Spaces
have been a
crucial tool in
HIV prevention
with PLWH/A
Peer support groups,
Post-test clubs,
Classes, Group therapy,
Positive-living Programs,
Collaboration in
Information, Education and
Communication Campaigns,
Income-Generating Activities
“I worked in groups on this idea of prevention ...The main
principle is to help people to become responsible for
themselves, their bodies and their rights. When people
become aware of their situation it is possible to promote
change.”
– HIV positive service provider, Clinica Condesa, Mexico

19. Intentionality and Framing
• Without intentionally, there is almost always a
reproduction of structural oppressions within the
organization or program
• Strategic Essentialism – for the most
marginalized of populations it is sometimes
necessary to reach out to a specific group so
that they may self-actualize

20. Logistics
• Low-threshold
• Location/time
accessibility
• Help meet
immediate needs
(tokens, food,
supplies)
• Sometimes
personal
relationships can
trump logistical
barriers
• If mandatory
program
(incarceration, court
ordered drug
treatment), theories
and practices of safe
spaces can be
included
• Consistency
• Think outside the
box

21. What not to do
• Don’t offer advice
unless asked but DO
recognize behavior
change that comes
from within
• Don’t assume a
singular identity; don’t
generalize
• Don’t try to do it all at
once; the small things
count
• Don’t exploit the space
or the participants

22. Reception
• Be patient, don’t take it personally
• Hire within the community and provide proper
training, including tools for de-escalation
• Appropriate imagery and visual
representations in front office
• Paperwork
First point of contact, establishes relationship and
trust between client and service provider

23. Direct Service Provider
• Office/workplace presentation
• Reflect clients’ language
• Do your homework, know laws and policy
• Be honest about internal biases – you can still
be a great provider! But also know when to
refer
Coordination of services, advocate, maintains
primary relationship between client and
organization

24. Supervisor
• Model affirmative language and client-
centered approach
• Hire within the community
• Facilitate appropriate staff trainings (beyond
accreditations) and interventions
• Safe spaces are for employees too!
Fosters and maintains successful environment for
safer spaces; less direct interaction with clients

25. Encountering Resistance?

26. Encountering Resistance?
Keep it simple - Assert your position without
starting a new conversation

27. Encountering Resistance?
Keep it simple - Assert your position without
starting a new conversation
Go further – Challenge existing attitudes,
systems, and client/provider dynamics

28. Encountering Resistance?
Keep it simple - Assert your position without
starting a new conversation
Go further – Challenge existing attitudes,
systems, and client/provider dynamics
Confront – Identify the problem and a path or
process to begin to address it within your
organization

29. Encountering Resistance?
Keep it simple
Go further
Confront

30. Encountering Resistance?
Keep it simple – Continue with affirming
language
Go further
Confront

31. Encountering Resistance?
Keep it simple – Continue with affirming
language
Go further – Correct co-worker’s misgendering
comments
Confront

32. Encountering Resistance?
Keep it simple – Continue with affirming
language
Go further – Correct co-worker’s misgendering
comments
Confront – Set up system to ensure correct
pronoun use and gender affirmation

33. Participants as Consultants
• They know more than you do; avoid
privileging institutional learning, degrees,
and resumes
• A truly safe space necessitates direct
community involvement and leadership
• As with any other consultant they should be
compensated fairly and financially, their

34. Consultation & Self-Advocacy
• VANDU, Nothing About Us Without Us
• Young Women’s Empowerment Project (Chicago),
Girls Do What They Have To Do To Survive:
Illuminating Methods used by Girls in the Sex Trade
and Street Economy to Fight Back and Heal
• Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network, Environments
of Nurturing Safety

35. And a note to participants…
How to get your needs met
and build a successful community-led space:
• Never assume someone knows how you feel
• Follow the rules set forth at your organization
• Work within the system to self-advocate when you feel
someone is breaking the rules or breaking your trust; don’t
lose your temper, talk to them directly or talk to their
supervisor
You are the expert:
You have an important set of skills to share with
people.

36. What if everyone had a safe
space to be heard?
Imagine if you had a safe space at your organization or in
your workplace where you could really listen to your
clients?
Think how you could implement some aspects of a safe
space –
or even how you are already doing so.
Thank You!