Peer Education is a vital and important part of service for people with HIV at the CORE Center. The Peer Educators at the CORE Center are HIV positive and have completed several months of classes about HIV transmission, HIV testing, and prevention of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases. They are a dedicated group of individuals from a wide variety of back rounds. In the CORE Center Clinic, they help bridge the gap between patients and the professional staff. They also do outreach education in the community in locations that most professional health workers may feel uncomfortable or not be welcome, such as places where drugs are actively used.
Several of the Peer Educators agreed to share their experiences with the online public. Their stories are inspiring.
E.J.'s Story:
Q) How did you get involved in the Peer Education Program at the CORE Center?
A) When I first came to the clinic, I didn't know nothing except the streets. I was using drugs and was addicted. I came to the clinic after my friend kept coming back to the streets and telling me I should go and get tested and get help. But I didn't listen for a long time.
Q) Why didn't you listen?
A) Fear and denial. I was in a state of denial. But he kept coming back on the streets, and was doing better, and telling me to get myself some help.
When I finally did come down to the clinic, I was seen by the Physician Assistant, who was a woman, in the Women's Clinic. She tried very hard to help me and find out what was going on with me, but I couldn't keep woke. I just kept falling asleep while she was talking to me. I weighed only 87 pounds and looked very bad, very sick. So, they were worried about me. This PA, she went to the nurse, and said, "I don't know what to do about this new patient, E.J. She keeps falling asleep. I can't do anything with her." She wanted to help me a lot, and that made a big difference to me.
Then the nurse, talked to me. And she said, "E.J., you need to get into this drug treatment program, CC Hope. Now, I had been in drug treatment programs but…..well, those programs didn't work. I got clean before but I did it for other people. And later, I went back to using drugs.
Q) Why were you successful in kicking drugs this time?
A) At CC Hope, it was different. After the PA talked to me and the nurse talked to me, I decided I wanted to live. And if I wanted to live, I needed to stop drugs. I had God's help. And I did it for myself, because I wanted to live. I didn't stop using for other people, I did it for myself.
So, I kept living in the drug house while I kicked drugs. The drugs were all around me, but it did not matter, I didn't use them. I made the decision not to use, so I didn't. I attended CC Hope. It's a drug treatment program for people with HIV at the CORE Center. I learn about what drugs do to your body. I had been using drugs for years, but I didn't know what harmful effects they do to your body. I learned about HIV and how drugs weaken your immune system.
I graduated from the CC Hope and I got a certificate. Then, I needed something to do with my free time. I knew if I did not fill up my free time, I might go back to the streets.
So, I became a volunteer and visited HIV positive patients on Ward 20 in Cook County Hospital. Some of these patients were scared and lonely in the hospital. I told them that I was HIV positive, and that I used to use drugs but now I was clean. I told them about HIV and what it does to your body and how you can get better with medicines. And I told the ones who used drugs about getting clean.
Q) How did the patients in the hospital respond to what you told them about yourself?
A) They felt good that I talked to them. A lot of them were surprised that I was HIV positive and that I used drugs. They couldn't believe it at first. They said I looked too good. I told them that I used to weigh 87 pounds and they couldn't believe it because I did not look sick. They thought being HIV positive means you're going to die, a death sentence. And I didn't look like I was going to die.
After that, when the Director of Health Education started a class for peer educators, I signed up. You had to have a certain amount of clean time, which I had. And I learned a lot. Then I began to work in the clinic.
Q) What do you do in the clinic as a Peer Educator?
A) I greet new patients, and I tell them what they need to know about HIV. I tell them that I am HIV positive, and that I used to use drugs and how long I am clean. I tell them that if you use drugs and you're HIV, you can LIVE if you get clean. They can't believe that I am HIV positive, and that I used drugs. And I tell patients that if I can get clean and take good care of myself, so can they. I try to show myself as a role model, and encourage people. A lot of the patients know me, and when they come in again, they look for me, E.J.
Vaughn Upchurch's Story
Vaughn Upchurch has been a Peer Educator since the Peer Education Program first started in 1992, Here are his thoughts to share with online readers:
Q) Vaughn, what is Peer Education?
A) Peer Education is where we educate our peers, which are people impacted by HIV like we are.
Q) How did Peer Education get started?
A) It was started by the Director of Health Education in 1992, Claire Addams. It was so we could go out in the community to help people reduce the risk to HIV and AIDS. We were mostly in the gay community because that is where the epidemic was primarily. We went to bath houses, talked about safer sex practices and passed out condoms. People who have sex, we want them to have it in a safer way. There is no safe sex, but you can make sex safer.
Q) How were you received in the gay bathhouses?
A) At first, cooly. After several times, bathhouse customers would be less suspicious and trust us.
Q) Could a professionally trained person, say a doctor or nurse do the work that Peer Educators did in the bath houses?
A) No. It would have to be a peer. People are not as relaxed with a professional as with a peer. We can be on the same level of understanding because of shared experiences.
As the epidemic changed, we changed the focus of our outreach to people of color.
Q) Did you do outreach to drug users?
A) Yes, from the beginning we'd go to shooting galleries and abandoned buildings because these were the places we knew people were using drugs. Because we were peers, we knew where these places were. We were greeted very suspiciously at first.
So, we worked on the needle exchange truck. We talked with the people who came to exchange needles for clean needles about HIV prevention. Again, we were received coolly at first.
We were persistent because we wanted to get the message across that people were dying. We persisted because it was important, because trying to save lives is very important. Due to our persistence eventually laws were changed, after 8-9 years, that you can get needles without a prescription. People know this due to Peer Educators.
Q) What other obstacles did you face doing Peer Education in the community?
A) When we talked about people getting into drug treatment and safer drug use, we were disliked by drug dealers. What we wanted people to do would lead to decreases in the income of the drug dealers.
Also, police were not to pleased at first because they thought we were contributing to drug use. They said we were contributing to people using dope. We had to educate the police. We went to the police station and educate them. After that, we got the cooperation of the police.
Q) What motivated you to do to this difficult work?
A) What motivated me when I first got impacted with HIV, when I first found out I was positive, I had nobody to talk to. Nobody. I was alone. I didn't want people in my community to be alone. I saw a need and I tried to fill that need.
Q) It sounds like you felt like you were on a mission.
A) Yes, and I still feel the same way. I was trained as a substance abuse counselor originally. While I did that work, everyone in my community saw HIV as a gay white problem. That was the need I saw, to educate my African American community that this HIV was impacting us.
I hope that everyone who is practicing unsafe behaviors will get tested for infectious diseases, such as HIV and Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Hepatitis C and Hepatitis B. Especially people in the African-American and Hispanic communities because they are the most at risk. It's the only way we will stem the tide of this virus.
J.B.'s Story
J.B. is an man who came to the CORE Center Peer Education Program after having already being a Peer Educator in prison. Here is what he says about Peer Education:
Q) How did you get involved in Peer Education?
A) I was involved in peer education in the correction center. I studied and completed the required curriculum for Peer Educators there. Then, after I finished treatment in CC Hope, and got more clean time, I wanted to learn more about HIV, and took the Peer Educator course here.
Q) What is important about this work in your opinion?
A) The most important tool in stopping HIV is knowledge. I think the more factual information that you have, the more you know about HIV and STD's, the better they can equip themselves to prevent infections. Then, they can pass this knowledge on to others.
Q) Do you think that Peer Educators have more success than professionals in reaching people who are at risk for HIV?
A) I think Peer Educators are more successful because people only see health professionals when they are sick. And we try to meet people as they are, whatever they life conditions: on the bus, bus stops, corners. We bring it to their attention that this is something they need to know even if they are not sick.
Q) What is your motivation to do Peer Education?
A) I am motivated to eliminate myths, to give tools to people to prevent being sick. I don't want anyone to contract any disease like HIV.
Q) Has being a Peer Educator changed you? What are the rewards of this work?
A) The rewards are the satisfaction of fulfilling a need. I achieved a sense of hope. Before I started being a Peer Educator, I felt hopeless. I had no cause, nothing that would be beneficial to anyone else or myself. Being a Peer Educator gave me the avenue and hope to achieve my goals. And it gave me the power to go further and further.
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