MSW student Stavi Xinos' proposal, "The Intersections of Intimate Partner Violence, HIV, Trans and Queer Identities, and Substance Use" was selected for the 36th National Conference on Social Work and HIV/AIDS. The session will take place on Friday, May 24, 2024 at 11:30am in Orlando, Florida.
The project's learning objectives include recognizing the unique forms of abuse & institutional barriers experienced by survivors who are HIV-positive, Queer and Transgender, and/or in active substance use, advocating for the inclusion, dignity, and safety of these populations within agencies, systems, and communities, and gaining an understanding of harm reduction and its benefits in serving diverse, marginalized populations.
This presentation developed from her involvement with one of the School of Social Work fellowships: Survivor Link + Public Health AmeriCorps. As an MSW student, she is completing her field work at The Open Door, Inc., a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit that serves people living with HIV and chronic homelessness through housing first and harm reduction models and interventions. As a member of AmeriCorps' Survivor Link + Public Health Fellowship, Xinos has been training her agency on domestic violence. She adapted her trainings to match the unique populations that the agency serves: people with HIV, chronic homelessness, Queer and Transgender identities, and active substance use. Xinos felt that this customization was critical to her work at The Open Door, since people who possess these identities and experiences face domestic violence at disproportionately higher rates compared to the rest of the U.S. population, face distinctive experiences of violence + barriers to achieving safety due to their unique positionality, and are often excluded from domestic violence scholarship and intervention. These trainings were so well-received that her task supervisor encouraged her to develop a conference abstract from the work.