Webinar Archive:  Reentry Series

Webinar date:  November 5, 2015

 

Description

Women living with HIV are five times more likely to have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and twice as likely to have been the victim of intimate partner violence compared to a national sample of American women without HIV.  Women with HIV who experienced recent trauma are over four times more likely to fail their HIV treatment and almost four times more likely to be unable to negotiate or engage in safer sex and drug use practices than those without HIV.  Women living with HIV face violence at the individual, community, and institutional levels.  Given these realities, what are the implications for women living with HIV who are reentering their communities after serving time in jail or prison?

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In this webinar, speakers address fundamental issues that underlie the challenges of working with reentering women who are living with HIV.  Women with heightened HIV risk factors and criminal justice involvement often live with histories of trauma, mental health, and/or substance abuse histories.  The webinar addresses the importance of

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a) implementing trauma-informed approaches;

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b) developing connections between reentering women and vital community resources; and

 

c) continuity of medical care.

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The speakers discuss the connections between violence and trauma and increased vulnerabilities for women living with HIV.  They discuss the value of addressing stigma and empowering women by developing community and other support systems.  The speakers also address and highlight common unhelpful practices, as well as what advocates and other practitioners can and should do to be more helpful to reentering women who are living with HIV.

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About the Presenters

Elisabeth Long is a Community Educator and organizer focused on transformation, justice and healing at the intersections of intimate and state violence.  She's passionate about roots (those we need to feed and those we need to pull up), supporting and celebrating survivor self-determination and building movements for collective liberation where people's full selves are honored and affirmed and no one is left behind.  Currently, she serves as the Co-Coordinator of TEACH Outside, an educational program for people living with HIV who have experienced incarceration, at Philadelphia FIGHT's Institute for Community Justice.  Prior to her time in Philadelphia, Elisabeth served as an LGBTQ anti-violence trainer and board member at Survivors Organizing for Liberation (formerly the Colorado Anti-Violence Program) and co-founded the Elephant Circle's Intimate Partner Survivors Prison Project, a program for imprisoned survivors of intimate partner violence focused on political education, community organizing and healing from violence and trauma.  In 2014, Elisabeth earned her M.A. in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago, where she was involved in the community- and youth-led struggle for a trauma center on the Southside of Chicago.

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Teresa Sullivan is an African-American woman openly living with HIV who helped found and launch the Philadelphia Regional Chapter of Positive Women's Network (PWN)-USA.  PWN is a network of HIV positive women around the world whose mission is to strengthen the collective power of HIV Positive women to impact, create and design policies and programs that truly meet women needs.  Currently, Ms. Sullivan is a senior member of the Philadelphia Regional Chapter and sits on the PWN-USA National Board of Directors.  Ms. Sullivan is the Co-Coordinator for Philadelphia FIGHT's TEACH Outside, an educational program for people living with HIV who have been incarcerated, and a graduate of the Black AIDS Institute's Black Treatment Advocates Network (BTAN) training.  She is passionate about the intersections between HIV and mass incarceration.  In 2011, Ms. Sullivan created and organized the first-ever Philadelphia Summit on Harm Reduction for Sex Workers.  She is a community organizer for the Support Center Advocacy, which is a grassroots coalition that does community outreach and acts as a resource center without walls for individuals coming home from prison and jail. Ms. Sullivan spearheads outreach into communities most impacted by the crisis of mass imprisonment and helps organize neighborhood level steering committees to address reentry needs.  Ms. Sullivan was honored this year as an outstanding leader in her community, career and family from the International Women's Leadership Association.

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Suggested Participants

Anyone currently working with, or planning to work with, charged, incarcerated, and reentering women and/or victims of battering will benefit from this webinar.  This may include community- and system-based advocates, reentry program staff, criminal justice professionals (including probation and parole officers) and community corrections staff.

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Note:  Due to technical difficulties the recording of this webinar does not include the PowerPoint presentation; it includes only the audio presentation.  We encourage you to get the PowerPoint (see link below) and follow along.  We think the transitions between the slides are pretty easy to figure out.

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Click here to access recording.  A copy of the PowerPoint (and any other documents from the webinar) is available by clicking here.