Abstract: Trans women of color experience a number of psychosocial challenges including discrimination, prejudice, stigmatization, and social/economic marginalization, which stand as obstacles to HIV care and other needed services. The Alexis Project* employs a multi-tiered, comprehensive approach, which includes network, individual and structural components to identify, recruit, test, link, treat and retain trans women of color into quality HIV care. The Alexis Project incorporates three proven models, Social Network Recruitment (network), Peer Health Navigation (individual) and Contingency Management (structural), into one multi-leveled project to optimize HIV health outcomes for trans women of color. Through Social Network Recruitment, local trans women recruit trans women of color from their social, sexual and drug-using networks into the project for either testing (HIV unknown status) or (for those who are aware of their HIV infection but not in care) to the combined Peer Health Navigation and Contingency Management intervention. Over the five-year study, 139 trans women of color will enroll in the combined Peer Health Navigation and Contingency Management intervention. The project goals are: 1) to identify trans women of color who are unaware of their HIV-positive status and identify trans women of color who are already aware of their HIV infection but have never been engaged in care or have refused a referral to care or have dropped out of care; 2) to directly link HIV-infected trans women of color to a Peer Health Navigator; 3) to link HIV-infected trans women of color to quality HIV care; 4) to work with HIV-infected trans women of color to address the barriers in their life that limits or impedes their access to HIV care; and, 5) to retain HIV-infected trans gender women of color in HIV care to reach and sustain HIV milestones. Peer Health Navigators work with participants to identify HIV care services and other needed services, develop a specific client-centered treatment plans, remove barriers to those services and access those services. Contingency Management provides increasing valuable incentives for attending HIV medical visits and reaching and sustaining HIV milestones.
Hours: Weekdays, 10:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Contact: 323-793-4645 or 323-512-7014
Funding Source: This project is funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and sponsored by Friends Research Institute, Inc.
https://www.friendscommunitycenter.org/alexis-project
*The Alexis Project is named after Alexis Rivera who died on March 28, 2012, at the age of 34, from complications related to HIV. Alexis was a proud Latina trans woman; a community activist, a peer advocate and a gatekeeper.