Introduction

Gay and Bisexual Men’s Health Promotion/ HIV Prevention Work
There are long established programmes of work around Gay and Bisexual Men’s health promotion following on from the “Making It Count” Strategy. Gay Men are still the largest group vulnerable to acquiring HIV infection in the UK.

This work should include:

  • CHAPS resource and campaign distribution
  • Targeted work with Gay Men living with HIV
  • Strategies to promote safer sex and condom use and to reduce the transmission of HIV and other STI’s – these will include group work and one to one interventions
  • Specific targeting of men accessing public sex environments including cruising and cottaging areas
  • Targeting of men looking for sex on the internet
  • Condom distribution
  • General wellbeing work with Gay and Bisexual men including support around smoking cessation, alcohol and drug use, counselling, assertiveness training
  • Promotion of the uptake of Hep B vaccinations
  • Targeted work with young gay/ bisexual men, gay and bisexual men from BME communities and men selling sex
The gay men’s group has been running in various forms for the past year. I (Peter Jones) took over the role of Gay and Bisexual Men’s Outreach Worker in September 2006 and since then I have been developing the group’s capacity and aims. It is a peer led group, meeting once a month, with designated counselling availability, guest speakers, and a safe, neutral place for gay and bisexual men and men who have sex with men to meet and share their experiences and receive advice.

The project is funded by Dudley PCT and currently employs one part time (30 hour) worker and funds one counsellor who provides 12 session courses of counselling for 11 service users.

At the time of my taking over in September as Gay and Bisexual Men’s Outreach Worker to facilitate the group, there were 27 existing clients, and over the past 4 months the numbers have almost doubled to 55 active clients, with more referrals each week. The group is attracting more new people at each meeting, through word of mouth, adverts in Zone magazine, leaflets, and referrals from the local GU clinic.

 
Service User Consultation
The group is very much intended to be user-led and as a result of this the focus on service user involvement and consultation is strong. The group is currently involved in redesigning the group’s logo and in January the first meeting of the year was around planning what the men wanted to do and to gain from the group over the coming months. A more formal client consultation study is planned for the new financial year.