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Mobile Outreach Project
In the first (and for many years the only)
project of its kind in Westchester County, street outreach workers and a
case manager engage active substance abusers, their sex partners, and others
at risk for HIV,with referrals to services at point-of-contact from a
specially equipped van with regular routes throughout southwest Yonkers. Our
workers teach prevention strategies; distribute food, condoms and bleach
kits; provide linkages to HIV testing, shelter, medical care, substance
abuse treatment and other community services; or, if the person is ready,
assist him or her in admission to a detox or rehab center.
Substance Abuse Harm Reduction
The Westchester County Department of Health
provides "pass-through" federal Ryan White funding to support three
outreach-casefinding profesionals to work with those whos sero-positive
status is unknown but are engaged in high risk behaviors associated with HIV
by linking them to HIV counseling and testing services followed by
appropriate medical care, benefits and all other supportive services. This
program also focuses on re-connecting those who are HIV positive but out of
care back to needed medical, benefits and all other supportive services
while providing them with secondary prevention.
Homeless Outreach
Service Team Project (HOST)
Many homeless individuals find themselves locked
out of the shelter system. Our HOST project (the only one of its kind in
Westchester) works with this specific group toward the goal of reentry into
the service system. Case managers and outreach workers engage unsheltered
homeless individuals who are outside of the county's shelter or transitional
housing system, providing rapid assessment, referral, and advocacy to help
them back into the service loop: this may mean anything from providing
shelter or food, to getting them admitted to medical or psychiatric care or
linked to substance abuse treatment.
Community HIV Prevention
Outreach
The New York State Department of Health through
the Multiple Services Agency (MSA) Innitiative provides funding to support
two professional Community Outreach Educators to provide community level,
one- to- one and in group prevention interventions according to the national
best-practice transtheoretical model of behavior change, in addition to
community outreach and the facilitation of the city of Yonkers HIV/AIDS
Providers Task Force.
HIV Testing & Counseling
Confidential HIV Testing and Counseling is
available to substance users who are either in treatment or not in
treatment. A certified HIV test counselor is available by appointment at 1
Hudson St., Yonkers and during regularly scheduled routes throughout
southwest Yonkers. (Funded by The New York State Department of Health, AIDS
Institute.)
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