The Black Youth Integrated HIV and SA Prevention Services Program
The Black Youth Integrated HIV and SA Prevention Services Program
“Over the past 17 years the face of AIDS has changed form gay White males to poor inner city Blacks. ...there is a state of emergency regarding the AIDS crisis in the Black community and that the US government must declare the AIDS epidemic in the Black community a public health emergency..." The Congressional Black Caucus
The Black Youth African-Centered Integrated HIV and Substance Abuse Prevention Services Program
Vision: The Black Youth African-Centered Integrated HIV and Substance Abuse Prevention Services Program is an attempt to further test and refine a unique theoretical behavioral change model.
Goals: The overall goal of this project is to help uninfected individuals to initiate and/or sustain behavior that will reduce or eliminate their risk of becoming infected with HIV and other STDs.
Theoretical Foundation: In utilizing the African Centered Behavioral Change Model, this project is designed to increase the protective factors within the Black population that retard disease and dysfunction by re-instilling traditional African and African American health promotion "cultural" values in Black youth. By realigning the behavioral process of the community and the psycho-behavioral dynamics of the community to its traditional, indigenous cultural reality, one simultaneously inoculates the community from disease and encourages community homeostasis (i.e. promotes harmony and health). The principle that drives "change" in the African Centered Behavioral Change Model is awareness of one's spiritual and physical coherence, which, in turn, demands the veneration of the person.
Scope of the Activities: Through the intervention activities, this project will provide Black adolescents with a seamless delivery of culturally competent substance abuse prevention and HIV prevention services designed to enable them to fully engage in risk-reduction behavior and initiate and/or sustain behavior that will reduce or eliminate their risk of transmitting the virus. In so doing The Black Youth Integrated SAP and HIV Prevention Services Program will (1) provide Black adolescents with culturally consistent HIV/AIDS and substance abuse prevention information and materials in naturalistic settings and (2) help Black youth to adopt/internalize values and attitudes which will enhance the resilient capacity of these adolescents so that they are better able to mediate and/or eliminate the risks to self-destructive behavior. The project intends to provide intervention services to 100 Black adolescents, 11–16 years old in the city of Oakland who are at risk of contracting the AIDS virus and other STDs through unsafe sexual activity as well as through substance abuse. The intervention will be implemented through a unique collaborative with youth serving community based agencies in Oakland.
Prevention Concerns: The Black Youth African-Centered Integrated HIV and Substance Abuse Prevention Services Program is an African-centered program based on a science/evidence based model of community empowerment. The project is a unique behavioral change prevention and intervention plan that is based on the cognitive restructuring, cultural realignment and character of Black youth.
Project Objective: The project will consist of (1) transforming the female oriented Healer Women Fighting Disease curriculum into a Black male-female youth development curriculum with an emphasis on HIV/STD education, adolescent sexuality, substance abuse prevention and reproductive health that would be age and gender appropriate; (2) training a team of four Black adolescents/young adults, two males and two females to serve as Youth Trainers (Community Immunologists) in the process of SA and HIV prevention; (3) holding a series of simultaneous training sessions for approximately 100 Black pre-teens and teens (11–16 years) annually; (4) providing one time booster sessions six months after exit from the program to participants; and (5) assessing the effectiveness of the project.
Predicted Outcomes: (1) An increase in knowledge about the cause, transmission, progression and prevention of HIV/STDs among African American youth. (2) Change from risky HIV/STD behaviors & beliefs to health promotion and maintenance. (3) Decrease in the incidence and level of substance use among African American youth, (4) increased feelings of self control, self-esteem and self mastery;