Credit: Courtesy of Carol Thames

Carol Thame provides training to HIV prevention workers in Trenton.

Carol Thame is an AIDS activist.

A health education coordinator for the Department of Health in Trenton, she partners with a program at Rutgers’ Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy to provide training to HIV prevention workers across the state.

Thame teaches a “train the trainer” course on an intervention called SISTA – Sisters Informing Sisters about Topics on AIDS. While promoting ethnic and gender pride, SISTA helps African-American women develop an understanding of protecting their health from HIV and other sexually transmitted infections as well as hepatitis.

Thame and scores of other health educators across the state are becoming empowered to teach their communities about HIV prevention through courses provided by the HIV Planning Community Support and Development Initiative (HPCPSDI), a joint program of the Bloustein School and the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services’ Division of HIV/AIDS Services. Currently, HPCPSDI provides technical assistance to 41 nonprofit organizations statewide that are reaching out to at-risk populations.

Rutgers and the Department of Health employ interventions created by the Centers for Disease Control to teach their students – in the case of SISTA, African-American women at risk for HIV – by honing the communications skills needed to nurture personal relationships and teaching safe sex practices. Communication, according to Thame, is as important as the nuts and bolts of safe sex because many women are not taught how to be assertive. “Some lack assertiveness skills to engage their partners in condom use; others receive negative responses when asking their partners to use condoms, which brings up trust issues,”  she said.

Thame, who went through a rigorous three-month training period before working with SISTA, said it takes sensitivity to reach the women at risk because many of them have more immediate needs. “Housing, employment, and general health care often take priority in their lives,” she said.

While AIDS does not capture the headlines it did a generation ago, the disease remains a serious problem worldwide as well as in New Jersey. According to a 2007 state Department of Health and Senior Services report, last year more than 34,000 New Jerseyans were reported living with HIV or AIDS. Minorities accounted for 76 percent of adult and adolescent HIV/AIDS cases, of which 31 percent were women. Further, more than half of persons living with the disease were non-Hispanic blacks, more than a third of them women.

Ann Dey, program development administrator at the Bloustein School, hopes that HPCPSDI’s support of the frontline HIV prevention workers will help to ultimately lower those numbers. The initiative began in 2001 as a two-pronged, joint program with the state’s Division of HIV/AIDS Services. From its inception, HPCPSDI has researched target populations, prevention interventions, and gaps in prevention services and delivery systems as well as provided technical assistance to community-based AIDS service organizations.

As the AIDS landscape changed, so has the initiative. “At first we emphasized technical assistance to grass roots organizations, but now we include training community trainers with the HIV prevention packages from the CDC,” Dey explained. “We also assure that trainers throughout the state are well prepared with the tools to deliver the interventions with fidelity to the scientific model.”

Every HIV prevention organization has the opportunity to send their workers to learn seven curricula targeted at high-risk populations, such as gay men, injection drug users, and African-American women. Dey and program coordinator Geri Summers co-facilitate training sessions that range from one day to five full days.

“The ‘how-to’ is as important as the material in the curriculum,” Dey said. For example, the “Healthy Relationships” curriculum uses role-playing and film clips to analyze the plusses and minuses of disclosing one’s HIV status to his or her sex partner without being judgmental. It then moves on to teaching safe, healthy lifestyles. “Knowing how to effectively deliver these types of messages takes sensitivity and creativity as well as lots of training and practice. That’s why we also teach “Effective Facilitation Skills” – a course on how to organize and present materials, how to get messages across, and how to empower oneself and others – before teaching HIV prevention curricula.”

Ultimately, Dey sees the Bloustein School’s project as a partnership with state Department of Health in providing education and support to those on the front lines of the battle against HIV/AIDS. “Someday, we all hope that we won’t be needed here, she said. “But until then, it’s truly an honor to serve them.”