history

The Womens Collective is a nonprofit 501(C)3 organization dedicated to meeting the needs of women with HIV/AIDS. Founded in 1993, the organizations mission begins with the premise that women with HIV/AIDS must be involved in every aspect of health care service delivery and their empowerment through peer support must be encouraged. Our services begin at the very moment of diagnosis and continue throughout the continuum of this disease, to help women access care and services-it is a holistic approach, designed to respect and honor the complexities of womens lives.

The Women's Collective Founder/Executive Director Patricia Nalls

Photo by Duane Cramer

The Womens Collective has expanded its programming since its original Coffee House support groups inception 1993. At that time our founder and executive director, Patricia Nalls, a woman living with HIV/AIDS (disclosed with the permission of Ms. Nalls), was determined to provide support to women who were often overlooked in the epidemic and whose needs were not being met by the traditionally male-centered services and support offered by local AIDS service organizations.

She learned almost immediately that with a support group comes the real issues and challenges that women living with HIV/AIDS and their families are faced with. There are the bills to pay, the medical decisions to make, negotiations with health care providers, childrens school, health and mental health issues and myriad more issues. Case management and advocacy for women grew naturally from the groups issues and subsequently research into where the services where and the inherent networking and work to sustain connections with other providers began.

As soon as a woman walks through our doors they are greeted by the staff and introduced to everyone here as well as introduced to our space; this is a unique approach as well as a critical one that ensures women and their family members feel welcome here at all times, under any circumstances. It is a warm and loving environment in which no one is judged for where they are, their need, situation or abilities.

The Womens Collective is grounded in a long tradition of advocacy from the grassroots level to the policy maker level in the metropolitan area. We have been effective in advocating for and with women and have seen the results of our advocacy manifested in better doctor-patient relationships for women for example or in more women-focused programming at other institutions that now provide transportation support or in child care at policy meetings such as the Ryan White Planning Council so that women can fully participate.

By 1996, we case managed 20 to 30 women at any given time, ran the Coffee House support group, had a 24-hour hotline run by our executive director from her home, had an established board of directors who performed many of the activities that a staff would otherwise handle and had garnered support form our first funders, The Ms. Foundations Women and AIDS Fund and the Washington AIDS Partnership. Each grant provided funding for separate components of the organization; The Ms. Foundation provided for technical assistance for our organizations development and the Washington AIDS Partnership funded our Women Helping Women to Survive program, a secondary prevention program for women in which we trained six peers to conduct outreach to testing sites to women who were newly diagnosed. This program has expanded over the years to become our Sisters Helping Sisters to Survive program that includes targeted outreach to young Black women through our Sisters Teaching and Reaching Sisters program.

We continued our growth throughout 1997 and by 1998 our funding had increased and we received our first grant to support a full-time staff person and our first office space. With the advent of an office and staff we added more programming such as our newsletter, expanded support groups for lesbians and women from Africa who face unique challenges and issues. We expanded our outreach efforts to include an Access Advocate (now our Outreach/Referral Program) led by peers who visited clinics, shelters, treatment programs and schools.

As well, we received funding not only to provide case management services through Ryan White Title II but also we received a grant to spear-head a pilot family-centered case management program that encompasses a womans self-defined family members. It was a unique opportunity for us to demonstrate that family-centered case management is an effective way of assisting families and making a difference as we have learned that if a woman is focused on her children or family members whose needs are not being met then she will not take care of her own health.

Tiffany Nalls, daughter of Founder & Executive Director Patricia Nalls, after whom the Tiffany Fund is named.

During the year 2000, we experienced our greatest period of growth. We began the year with seven staff in a small two-room office on Connecticut Avenue and in July moved to our current location in the heart of the U Street corridor-a historically Black neighborhood. Our office space now accommodates, in 4,000 square feet, private offices, a drop-in resource center for women and families with materials on HIV/AIDS, a TV/VCR and a computer with broadband Internet connection, a large community kitchen & pantry with food for clients as well as a large open meeting space for larger forums such as treatment education sessions and board meetings.

As of June 2003, we have a full-time staff of thirteen, 20 part-time peer educators, space for our prevention program, one AmeriCorps member and many volunteers who contribute invaluable time and services to our organization such as free computer networking services and volunteer time answering phones among other activities. We have several consultants who provide the technical expertise that supplements our staffs own professional capacity such as an accountant who provides fiscal oversight and management, a LICSW who provides therapeutic support, expert peers who facilitate our support groups and conduct prevention outreach. We recently completed a 5-year strategic plan that will assist us in visualizing and actualizing a plan for our future.

Click here to learn more about our HIV care management and prevention programs or read Pats article Beginnings from our premiere issue of Sisters in the Struggle in the Fall of 1998.