Social Work with People Practicing Same-Sex ... - ILGA Europe

4.2. Community Centres
What is a Community Centre?
Myroslava Andrushchenko
“International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Ukraine”
A community centre (or a “drop-in centre“) is a community association, a place where
community members can gather for group activities, social support, information or
leisure activities. Such centres, depending on their goals, can be open for all community
members and for certain specific groups. The first community centres appeared in the
beginning of the XX century in the USA, where after the establishment of the National
Association of Community Centres in 1916 this term became widespread. One of the
first organizers of such a centre, Clinton Childs, described it as: “A Community organized
about some centre for its own political and social welfare and expression; to peer into
its own mind and life, to discover its own social needs and then to meet them, whether
they concern the political field, the field of health, of recreation, of education, or of
industry; such community organization is necessary if democratic society is to succeed
and endure”.
Community centres throughout the world are the most common form of work with
different target groups. Community centres are widely used to work with migrants,
ethnic minorities, PLH, IDUs, violence victims; they work for MSM, WSW, transgender
people and other target audiences. For example, in Germany and the Netherlands,
where this form of work is well developed, Community Centres for most vulnerable and
HIV affected groups 1 work, as a rule, with support of civil society organizations, or in
cooperation with nongovernmental and governmental organizations. In Singapore
community centres are located in the premises specifically provided by the state for
this purpose. In the United Kingdom there is a special network of social community
centres (UK Social Centre Network), which coordinates the activities of such centres.
The very idea of community centres or common interest clubs is not new for Ukraine.
However, the establishment of such centres for HIV vulnerable target groups, in
particular for men who have sex with men, and for LGBT, where they can receive free and
anonymous social and health services in addition to leisure activities is a new form of
activity for both civil society organizations and for government institutions.
The Role of Community Centres in HIV Prevention among Vulnerable
Groups
The key objective of prevention programmes is not just to distribute condoms and
lubricants, or exchange syringes and distribute information booklets, but to motivate
the representatives of vulnerable groups to change their risky behaviour for a safer one.
In other words, a prevention programme should convince an individual to voluntary
change his behaviour for a long time. Behaviour change is a rather long process that
has a number of psychological patterns and stages, at each of which a person who is
changing his behaviour, is in need of support, respective information and conditions
for change.
Public service announcements, posters, outreach work, condoms distribution, syringe
exchange outlets all work mostly at the first stages of behaviour change helping a
person to start thinking about the problem. In order to achieve any sustainable
outcomes, the new forms of work are needed, including a focused work with the target
1 HIV vulnerable grups include men
who have sex with men, female and
male sex workers, injecting drug
users.
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