AFAO, 16 December, 2015
A new resource for HIV educators, Guiding Principles for Young Gay Men’s HIV Health Promotion, is the product of several years of discussions among the AFAO membership about how to best address young gay men’s HIV risk and health promotion needs.
This process has included the discussion paper ‘Are Young gay men really so different?’, a scoping study of AFAO member organisations and key LGBTI-focussed youth and mental health services, and the Young Gay Men’s Health Promotion Workshop with expert HIV and sexual health educators held in May 2015.
The principles agreed upon are that HIV health promotion for young gay men should:
- Strive for inclusivity
- Be owned by young gay men
- Build social and community connectivity among young gay men
- Be real
- Promote informed decision making
- Be evaluated, effective and responsive.
The principles aim to respond to enormous diversity among young gay and same sex attracted (SSA) men and the existence of many different ‘youth cultures’. They are intended as a checklist to be revisited during program development, implementation and evaluation.
The Guiding Principles includes background to the development of the document, with reports on the scoping exercise and the workshop.