The POWER of LEARNing and LEADing Together: Shared Learning Communities.

Southern community-based organizations often lack adequate resources to implement high-quality, culturally appropriate HIV programs and services. Shared learning communities (SLCs) combine in-depth training, tailored coaching, and peer-to-peer learning to strengthen HIV programs and services. This paper describes five SLCs, participant characteristics, and their capacity-building components.

Southern Care: A Rapid Response to Supporting Southern CBOs at the onset of COVID-19.

Southern community-based and HIV/AIDS service organizations (CBOs) were particularly vulnerable to the onset of COVID-19 due to already fragile infrastructures and underfunded budgets. At the height of the pandemic, the Gilead COMPASS Coordinating Centers launched the Southern CARE Grant, awarding 41 grants to provide supplemental operational support funds.

Changing Narratives and Provoking Dialogue: An Analysis of the HIV Stigma and Faith Summit.

GLAAD in partnership with the Gilead COMPASS Initiative® Coordinating Centers conducted a three-day summit to address the HIV epidemic in the Southern region of the United States. The summit featured virtual panel discussions with HIV experts, faith leaders, community advocates, and entertainers to bring about conversation and change around HIV stigma.

Investing, Leading, Building, and Ending the HIV Epidemic: The PoWER of Collaborative Learning for Community-Based Organizations in the South.

The PoWER Series is the Emory COMPASS Coordinating Center's (ECCC) most intensive strategy for assisting organizations with transforming organizational practice, improving systems and operations, and ensuring data-driven service outcomes. COMPASS Coordinating Center's partners who have completed PoWER have developed the infrastructure of their organization, increased their knowledge, secured additional funding, and developed new partnerships.

Reducing HIV Vulnerability Through a Multilevel Life Skills Intervention for Adolescent Men (The iREACH Project): Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Few HIV interventions have demonstrated efficacy in reducing HIV risk among adolescent men who have sex with men (AMSM), and fewer still have recognized the unique needs of AMSM based on race/ethnicity or geographical setting. Recognizing that youths' HIV vulnerability is intricately tied to their development and social context, delivering life skills training during adolescence might delay the onset or reduce the consequences of risk factors for HIV acquisition and equip AMSM with the skills to navigate HIV prevention. This protocol describes the development and testing of iREACH, an online multilevel life skills intervention for AMSM.

An Integrated Service Delivery Model to Identify Persons Living with HIV and to Provide Linkage to HIV Treatment and Care in Prioritized Neighborhoods: A Geotargeted, Program Outcome Study.

Background: Recent studies have demonstrated that high human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevalence (2.1%) rates exist in "high-risk areas" of US cities that are comparable to rates in developing nations. Community-based interventions (CBIs) have demonstrated potential for improving HIV testing in these areas, thereby facilitating early entry and engagement in the HIV continuum of care.

Rationale, Design and Methods of the Ecological Study of Sexual Behaviors and HIV/STI among African American Men Who Have Sex with Men in the Southeastern United States (The MARI Study).

Background: This paper describes the rationale, design, and methodology of the Ecological Study of Sexual Behaviors and HIV/STI among African American Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM) in the Southeastern United States (U.S.; known locally simply as the MARI Study).