What have I been up to? It’s been an exciting couple of weeks for me. I’d no sooner got back from PLDI training in Orillia, Ontario and then I was off to Ottawa for level two of my TTOA training. I’ve been back from Ottawa about a week now but keeping a low profile while dealing with things on the home and health fronts.
What are PLDI and TTOA? OK, one at a time.
PLDI is the Positive Leadership Development Institute, a partnership program of the Ontario AIDS Network and the Pacific AIDS network. They teach three courses designed to let people living with HIV develop – you guessed it – various leadership skills which they will then be able to use within the movement.
I just completed the first part of PLDI, which was mainly focused on defining who you are as a leader and with the history of the AIDS movement. It also grounded participants in the guiding principles of GIPA (Greater Involvement of People Living with HIV/AIDS). I’m looking forward to the next, which is mainly centered on board and committee work.
TTOA stands for Turning to One Another. That’s the rubric under which ABRPO (AIDS Bereavement and Resiliency Program of Ontario) presents a course in three parts with the overall project objective “to increase the capacity of AIDS Servicer Organizations (ASOs) to build effective working relationships between ASO staff and service users in multiple roles.”
Together, the two programs are providing service users with the organizational tools and peer facilitation skills to drive their ASO much more than ever before.
As an example, I live in Peterborough and PARN (Peterborough AIDS Resource Network) is my ASO. For some time, service users had been challenging PARN to become more client-focused and -driven. A consultant was hired and after consultation with service users and staff, concerns and solutions were incorporated in to a support program review document. It then falls to the Executive Director, in consultation with service users and staff, to make decisions as to how to proceed.
But here is where leadership training comes in. Following GIPA principles and “nothing about is without us” requires that decisions be made with full participation of people living with HIV and thus there’s tremendous opportunity for PARN to redesign service delivery with the guidance of people living with HIV who use their services.
So that’s what we’re doing. I currently sit on am advisory group of people living with HIV called “Project Inform”. One of its tasks currently is to go through the support program review paper item by item, making recommendations on its recommendations as we go. And here’s where TTOA and PLDI training really helps.
Also, for me, one of the best things about both TTOA and PLDI is the people I get to meet, the news and ideas I get to share, the connections I get to make, the safety to talk and brainstorm about anything, knowing that the people I’m with are for the most part people living with HIV and basically there for me, however different we might be in other respects.
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been hearing a range of common concerns voiced by people living with HIV from across the province but it’s been uplifting to see their degree of enthusiasm and willingness to work to bring about positive change for us all - and fix them.
Whether doing peer facilitation or board work, there are many challenges and the work can be hard emotionally. People living with HIV are a diverse lot. Anyone can get the virus. People of all nationalities, people of every political stripe, the polyamorous and the very devout all meet in the HIV movement, some of them for the first time. Rifts sometimes can form along lines of culture, lifestyle or beliefs and it can sometimes be hard to put aside old ideas about people or groups.
PLDI and TTOA provide me with the tools and training necessary for dealing with what can be difficult situations as I become more integrated into the system and take a more vital role in HIV work.
At least that’s the plan. I’ll let you know how it’s turning out.