A Division of Cornerstone Family Healthcare
HVCS’ Ulster County Outreach Program is offering a free virtual Narcan training on Monday, June 26, 2023 at 11:00 am. Participants who complete the training will be sent information on obtaining a free Narcan kit with two lifesaving doses of nasal inhalant Narcan.
To sign up, visit this page.
Learn more about PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) to prevent HIV infection and how to get it here.
Even before merging, HVCS and Cornerstone Family Healthcare (CFH) worked together as community partners. We frequently make referrals back and forth to ensure that clients have optimal healthcare and the best possible quality of life. In our Drug User Health Hub, serving clients with opioid use disorder in Orange and Sullivan counties, a Cornerstone Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner sees clients and writes Suboxone prescriptions.
Since the merger, two CFH programs became HVCS programs:
• Positive Choices Center: HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment (moved to Client Services department)
• HIPS and PrEP (moved to Community Education and Prevention department with HVCS)
For more information about Cornerstone, visit www.cornerstonefamilyhealthcare.org or find them on Facebook and Instagram.
Talk sexual health with Hudson Valley Community Services!
Thursday February 18th at 6:15 p.m.
The program will include a presentation on common STI’s, prevention and harm reduction methods, and methods of safe sex. It will also include a conversation on overall health. After the presentation HVCS will open up the conversation for questions and offer services to anyone who may be interested.
These groups are held in a safe space, are 100% confidential, and are LGBTQ affirming.
Register here: www.rebrand.ly/sexhealth
This event is being conducted with the Newburgh Free Library.
In mid-December, we received an email from the Ulster County Department of Mental Health. They asked if we would be interested in signing on as a subcontractor on a grant from NACCHO: the National Association of City and County Health Officials. Specifically, they wanted to know if we would be up for reviving or rebooting our Mid-Hudson Project Reach Out (PRO) program to provide support and referrals to Ulster County residents with substance use disorder issues. We said yes, collaborated on a grant application, and were very pleased to learn that it was funded!
Street Outreach will offer many of the same services as PRO but is not van-based. Services include referrals to full spectrum addiction treatment (including in- and outpatient services and transportation to intake/admission appointment as needed), Expanded Syringe Access Program (ESAP), Syringe Exchange Program (SEP), Narcan training, HIV/HCV/STI testing counseling and navigation, case management, and food assistance.
Though we wish we could bring back PRO to the entire Mid-Hudson, we are thrilled to restore it to one county at least, and to have found a brand-new funding partner in Ulster County Department of Mental Health.
Our Peer Health Alliance’s podcast returns for a second season with a three-part episode all about pornography. Some of our prevention specialists talk with Dr. Rev. Katie Cuminski, a professor at the College of Staten Island, about the effects of pornography on our sexuality, dating, and expectations. Settle in for this meaty discussion on this important and impactful topic. (And yes, these episodes are meant for adult ears only.)
Link to the episodes here:
https://anchor.fm/hvcspha/episodes/Lets-Talk-About-Porn-Part-1-en7jft
https://anchor.fm/hvcspha/episodes/Lets-Talk-About-Porn-Part-2-en7jpv
https://anchor.fm/hvcspha/episodes/Lets-Talk-About-Porn-Part-3-en7jr7
Or subscribe to ALL our episodes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hvcs-peer-health-alliance/id1497018707
Visit prepforsex.com for more information.
Gotham Gazette reported on New York State’s withholding of payments on contractual services already provided by HVCS and its potential impact on programs and staffing. HVCS is not the only nonprofit facing this dilemma by far. Thanks to Gotham Gazette for covering this issue.
“With the pandemic blowing a hole in the economy and leading to a drastic drop in state tax revenue, budget officials have for months been withholding payments for state contracts to manage cash flows. Among the victims of that fiscal approach are substance use treatment providers who are being forced to cut already-limited services and consider staff layoffs and furloughs, which they say will likely lead to a sharp increase in overdoses and new disease outbreaks around the state.”
Jennifer Brathwaite, our Director of Education and Prevention, is quoted in this two-part article on aging in prison on RealHealth.com.
This a lengthy yet eye-opening article that is well worth the read. Jennifer’s contributing quotes appear in Part Two.
Here’s an excerpt:
Brathwaite finds that sometimes formerly incarcerated seniors may not be aware and educated about issues concerning HIV. “While I wouldn’t want to stereotype or put everyone in the same group, I think that with our older population, there is less knowledge or access to information that’s current about the advancements in this area and in what we know about HIV, hep C, STIs [sexually transmitted infections], infectious disease transmission and things like that,” she observes. “I think there’s still a lot of stigma, specifically around HIV, and a lack of knowledge about how the virus is transmitted.”