Words to Say It Campaign - New South Wales, Australia

This campaign is based on the idea that effective health promotion depends on ensuring that campaigns and the resources produced are seen as relevant and motivating by the audience being addressed. Since peer education is an effective tool for achieving change, organisers say, PLWHA play a central role in campaign/resource development, implementation, and evaluation. There is an emphasis on 'lived' experiences, community knowledge, and participation. Specifically, community consultations including confidential interviews, workshops, and forums provided spaces for discussions of personal understandings of sexual fulfillment and safe behaviours and of the place of HIV in the lives of PLWHA. Participants identified communication strategies, disclosure of HIV, negotiating sex and sexual health, and discrimination as key campaign themes.

Campaign activities are designed to support a holistic approach to prevention and to acknowledge the contexts in which PLWHA operate (for example, relationship dynamics and discrimination) as well as their social and health needs. Personal stories and 'real' questions, as well as images of PLWHA that speak to individual experiences, are features designed to increase the accessibility of the campaign. A person living with HIV/AIDS named Simon comments that "The messages ask you to take that step back. Assess what the issue is for you. Look at individual strategies to look after yourself. It opens you to discuss issues about sex, sexual health and what it means to take steps to do so."

Concretely, this campaign uses printed materials, face-to-face contact, and the Internet to deliver its messages. Three brochures, which may be downloaded in PDF format on the PLWHA New South Wales site, feature facts, resources for information and support, and quotations from HIV-positive people. To cite an example of the latter, one brochure - entitled "disclosure" - is organised around the comments of HIV-positive people who have faced the decision of whether, when, and how to tell others about their HIV status. The overriding theme of this brochure is that HIV discrimination makes disclosure more difficult, particularly in the negotiation of safe sex: "it is sometimes difficult to find the words to say it". And in the brochure called "communication", Ian comments "I read a lot - information is important. I meet regularly with a group of positive guys. We share information, laughs and tears. We talk about sex, relationships and day to day living. Between us we work through some of our anxieties." Resources for making such connections are provided. Two factsheets are also available. Portions of these printed materials has appeared in the gay press as well as community journals and newsletters in an ad campaign that addresses both men and women. These ads alert people to the existence of further information, links, and services available to PLWHA in New South Wales - details that also appear on the PLWHA New South Wales site.

In addition, campaign themes are the focus of a series of community forums and discussion groups. Organisers say that these opportunities for personal contact place PLWHA at the heart of health promotion. The gatherings are meant provide a safe, supportive environment that enables discussion of relevant topics with peers, development of new networks, exchange of experiences and opinions, and peer education. The underlying strategy here is that by strengthening community action and developing personal skills, individuals and communities may be more able to make decisions and identify interventions that are relevant and sustainable in the long term. A campaign priority reflected in the design of these community discussions, therefore, is to support PLWHA in determining not just what concerns might be of significance, but also how they perceive certain issues, and how they choose to voice them.

HIV/AIDS, Sexual Health, Discrimination.

PLWHA New South Wales will conduct ongoing process evaluation of campaign implementation, reach, quality of health promotion material and client satisfaction, and analysis of distribution and placement of resources. In addition, an impact evaluation will be conducted; it will focus on changes in knowledge, attitudes, and motivations with reference to on issues affecting the health and wellbeing of PLWHA. Organisers will also carry out participant evaluations of the usefulness and impact of forums and community debate, and may evaluate uptake and awareness of sexual health services.