Someone Cares is a leading agency in the fight especially in the African American (AA), Latino MSM and Transgender communities. Each year, the organization make over 4,000 unduplicated contacts with AA, Latino MSM & Transgender and other “at risk” men of color through its outreach programs. Because Someone Cares is an organization created by and for the AAMSM and Transgender communities, it has extraordinary access, through Social Networking, to the community and places where the community congregate. As a result, the agency has access to parks, bathhouses, clubs, adult bookstores, private sex parties and other areas where MSM and Transgender congregate. With this type of access, Someone Cares has been able to convey messages and provide information regarding free HIV testing and STD screenings, safe sex practices and given prevention tools, and the like. Having obtained the confidence of these communities in a non-judgmental way, the AA, Latino MSM / Transgenders have become more open to discussions about reducing at risk behavior and likewise more open to invitations to attend weekly Empowerment group meetings.
Someone Cares Inc. of Atlanta(S1C) has been serving the LGBTQ community since 1996. Originally established in Jacksonville, Florida in 1996, with a mandate to bring about change in the growing number of HIV/AIDS cases reported in the LGBTQ community and high- risk minority population. However, in 1998, the organization relocated its headquarters to Marietta, a suburb of Atlanta and renamed it Someone Cares, Inc. of Atlanta. It maintains offices in Jacksonville, Florida, Durham, North Carolina and Columbia, South Carolina. Someone Cares, Inc. of Atlanta’s mission include empowering the LGBTQ, underserved, marginalized, and homeless populations at risk for living with HIV/AIDS as well as those who are vulnerable to human exploitation. This year marks the 22nd anniversary of the organization, and all indication is that they are meeting the challenge in providing much needed services to the LGBTQ community. Through hard work, empathy and love, Someone Cares is aggressively addressing HIV/AIDS, mental health and other health disparities. They have served over 80,000 individuals and their families.
Someone Cares, through a variety of programs, with dedicated staff is hugely impacting the lives of the LGBTQ community in ways unimaginable decades ago. How did they do it? Among other things, by becoming their own brothers keepers—they decided to look out for themselves. In 2008, Someone Cares established Trans Health Program called R.E.A.L./T—Reaching, Educating, Assisting, and Liberating Trans. It was primarily dedicated to the health and wellbeing of the trans community-to address health disparities and social needs. Its mandate was to provide HIV prevention education, intervention, counseling and testing to the Transgender community. This program has become one of the most cherished programs at Someone Cares for a variety of reasons including the empowerment of Trans individual to seek higher education, job placement, housing, skill building and so on.
Another program adopted by Someone Cares that has had a huge impact on the LGBTQ community is through their Early Detection Intervention Clinic which was established in 2010. The purpose of this clinic is to help in removing barriers to early HIV/AIDS/STD detection in the LGBTQ and high risk, underserved minority population. Among the services provided at these clinics, besides education, prevention, treatment and social services, they provide screening for various diseases such as HIV, Gonorrhea, Syphilis, Hepatitis C, Herpes, TB, and Chlamydia. Although these clinics serve the LGBTQ community, they provide services to everybody that come to the clinics. Their services are free of charge.
Someone Cares operates a Behavioral Program Services. It provides mental health and addiction services to the LGBTQ, targeting Men who have Sex with Men(MSM) and Transgender communities. Many of these individuals struggle with issues related to criminal arrests, homelessness, drug addiction and untreated medical condition which may lead to premature death. Someone Cares helps these high- risk group lower their risk of exposure to hazardous, unsafe sexual behavior that generally lead to high rates of HIV/STD infections.
To further reach the LGBTQ community, Someone Cares collaborates with other community based and civil organization to increase awareness about HIV/AIDS/STD. By so doing, the organization has created an environment that is conducive to the cultural aspect of a community that has been ignored and underserved for a very long time. (someonecare.com). The organization has another weapon at its disposal to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS/STD. it is called “PrEP” which stands for Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis. It is a program that allow people who do not have HIV but who are at very high risk of getting it to take a pill every day to prevent HIV infection. The pill contains two medicines that are also used to treat HIV. If an individual takes PrEP and is exposed to HIV through sex or injection drug use, these medications reduce the chance of the virus from taking hold in the individual’s body. It is a powerful HIV prevention tool and when combined with condoms and other prevention methods, it provides even greater protection than when used alone. But there is a catch. Individuals who use PrEP must commit to taking the drug every day and seeing their health care provider for follow-up every 3 months.
TWIST-Transgender Women Involved in Strategies for Transformation is a CDC Behavioral Intervention that focuses on reducing HIV transmission among Trans women living with HIV. This is accomplished by fostering gender affirmation, increasing social support, increasing HIV knowledge, improving self-efficacy for relationship management and practicing safer sex behaviors and reducing stress. (someonecaresatl.org/transgender-program-services).
Someone Cares uses social media to disseminate crucial information to the community. It does this through its internet outreach program: Cyber Reach. It targets LGBTQ members by posting information on various internet sites used by the members of the community. Currently, the organization provides a daily message on one such site. Through these daily messages, readers are educated about HIV/AIDS/STD and safe sex practices, holding dialogues on relationships and self-esteem issues. Because of this effort, Someone Cares has reached 3562 MSM and Transgender; of that number, 373 have been tested for HIV and 202 have been referred for other STD screenings and condom distribution. (someonecaresatl.org/accomplishments).
For Someone Cares to achieve their goals as stated both in their vision and mission statements, they must continue to reach out and engage the Trans and Gender-Non-Conforming(GNC) community impacted by HIV/AIDS. It is therefore incumbent upon any AIDS Service Organization like Someone Cares to provide effective and best practice strategies that both affirm and support the experiences of Trans and GNC people. The organization must continue to engage people where they are; create opportunities for Trans and GNC people to thrive by way of empowerment. The REAL T program is a good example of such support group. Someone Cares must ensure the bulk of their employees are from the LGBTQ community. This is an effective way to gain rapport and trust from community members. The services of Community Advisory Board and Youth Advisory Board must be effectively used as well. The organization must always bear in mind that majority of the membership of the Board must come from within the community. Someone Cares must encourage the community to use the LBGT Resource and Ally Center in downtown Atlanta. It is a safe space for support groups, trainings, job readiness, GED, computer center, correctional, homelessness and HIV/STD clinical services. The center is assessable on public transportation. (someonecaresatl.org/accomplishments).
I worked on the following competencies during my internship, health policy and management, communication and informatics, and professionalism, diversity and culture, leadership. I used health policy and management policy in my assignment when I worked on quality improvement assignment to address organizational performance issues. I used communication and informatics technology to access, evaluate and interpret public health data throughout the assignment. My ability to interact and work with the LGBTQ membership—a very diverse group—is attributed to my exposure to diversity and cultural competencies I learned throughout my program at Benedictine University. It is a combination of knowledge, skills, awareness pertaining to cultural differences and respect for those differences. (www.culturalcompetency.hr.va.gov/index.asp). Most importantly, I became very familiar with some key LGBTQ definitions. In using leadership competency, I engaged in conversations, emails, interviews to learn from others in other to advance public health goals. Professionalism as a competency, is of paramount importance in achieving other competencies. At the back of my mind throughout my internship program at Someone Cares, Inc. of Atlanta was that I kept reminding myself that I am a representative of Benedictine University. With that in mind, I demonstrated and made ethical choices, adapt to Someone Cares policies including abiding by their HIPPA policy, honesty, and promoted high standard of personal and organizational integrity.
Overall, my internship at Someone Cares was a good experience for me. I learned so much from my preceptor Sedrick Garner, who made sure that everything that I needed for a successful internship was made available to me. The entire staff were very friendly, cordial and provided me with any information requested or directed me to where I could get the information. I was trained in HIV testing, learned culturally competent approaches to Transgender populations of color, and became very familiar with various departments and the role each plays towards achieving the overall goals of Someone Cares, Inc. of Atlanta. The first assignment I was given at the beginning of my internship was to design a by-law for the Community Advisory Board (CAB). It was a responsibility I gladly accepted, and successfully executed. I have also had the opportunity to attend their meetings during my internship.
