Women & Families Network

The Women and Families Network is a collaboration of service providers, women living with HIV, and community members working together to advocate for a more responsive service system that addresses the unique health care needs of women, youth and families affected by HIV.

The Network achieves its goals by providing a forum to exchange information, developing events, and fostering partnerships with community groups, community health organizations, government agencies, and other providers. The network also works to ensure that agencies collaborate to provide quality care to people living with HIV and hosts monthly networking opportunities for agencies to share resources, program information, and support.

Twenty-one volunteers, including service providers in the field of HIV, consumers living with HIV and affected family members, currently serve as voting and non-voting members of the Women and Families Network (WFN). Seven of these 21 members are women living with HIV. In addition, the WFN served more than 50 HIV-positive women from throughout the state of Minnesota at its Annual Women’s Health Conference in September 2009.

One of the WFN’s founding service providers, West Side Community Health Services (West Side), has run a successful HIV Program in Saint Paul since 1990. Last year, West Side’s HIV Program served 469 people: 288 HIV-positive persons and indeterminate infants; 14 HIV-negative (affected); and 166 unknown/unreported (affected). Of the 288 HIV-positive persons and indeterminate infants, 78% were from communities of color; 33% were African American/ African Born; and 41% were Hispanic/Latino. HIV-outpatient intervention services provided by bilingual/bicultural staff in a community clinic setting include: HIV testing and counseling; pharmaceutical care; clinical trial assessments; nutrition services; health education; medical case management; diagnostic/laboratory services; referrals for specialty care, dietary needs, and substance treatment; mental health services such as evaluations, consultation, referrals, and support; and social service assessments and referrals for food, housing, transportation, education, legal, childcare, and employment. For more information, visit the WSCHS HIV Program website.

Funding from the Minnesota AIDS Trek is used to support WFN’s annual conference for women living with HIV in Minnesota. A goal of the conference is to create a safe place for women to talk about their experiences and health care issues that are important to them, as well as get connected to services. They are not only HIV positive women, but more importantly, they are mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, aunts, partners and caregivers to themselves, their families and their communities. You can find more info on the Networks’ Annual Conference page.

The Women and Families Network Women’s Health Conference is very grateful for the opportunity to participate in the AIDS Trek event that provided us with the financial support to make our event possible for the women in our communities. The AIDS Trek also gave us an opportunity to support other friends and networks in the community that continue to fight the same fight we do, Stopping the Spread of HIV/AIDS, through testing, education, prevention and outreach.

– Women & Families Network

For more information, please visit the Women & Families Network website at www.wfnetwork.org.