This proposal addresses the need for practical, empirically based tools to aid community based organizations in the delivery and sustainability of effective prevention strategies in order to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS among homeless and street youth. The goal of this proposed work is to provide the agencies that support outreach to homeless youth the tools they need to increase the skills of their outreach workers and to strengthen the ability of their community network to deliver redundant and successful HIV Prevention messages. The Center for Research Strategies (CRS) proposes to synthesize knowledge from agencies experienced in serving street youth as well as evidence-based research from the scientific literature into a user-friendly, tool-kit format. These tools will provide practical support to agency staff as they face the situations that complicate the delivery of HIV prevention messages to homeless and street youth. The target audience of the modular toolkit will be community based agencies that employ outreach workers to serve homeless and street youth while maintaining collaborative networks to provide the comprehensive services needed by these youth. ? ?
