Health is one of the focal points of NYAC's social justice mission. Equitable access to health information serves as a form of empowerment, especially for young people. Our Health Department provides national leadership and advocacy on key health issues affecting LGBTQ youth including sexual health, teen pregnancy, youth suicide, violence, depression, and substance use and abuse. NYAC was the first LGBTQ youth specific organization ever to be directly funded by the Center For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Adolescent and School Health. NYAC continues to monitor youth HIV prevention programs and continues to advocate for a comprehensive approach (inclusion of information on both abstinence and contraceptive use) to sexuality education for young people.

Members of NYAC's health staff are available to provide consultation, technical assistance and training services to youth serving organizations. In addition, NYAC maintains a comprehensive health resource database (comprised of the latest research articles, publications, health curriculums and intervention modules) on topics which directly affect LGBTQ youth, youth of color, and young women including sexual health and sexuality education, healthcare access and related policy issues, disease prevention, lesbian and bisexual women's health, young men's health, transgender health, substance use and abuse issues, physical and emotional abuse and trauma, and mental health issues.

Projects

Organizational Development and Capacity Building Assistance Project: Strengthening Community Access To and Utilization of HIV Prevention Services

The National Youth Advocacy Coalition, in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is a provider of capacity building assistance (CBA) services for community-based organizations providing HIV/AIDS prevention and education services to young people, with a specific emphasis on organizations providing services to young men who have sex with men (YMSM) and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth of color.

NYAC is committed to providing culturally competent and appropriate services in the following service areas:

NYAC with support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has created a national strategy to increase HIV testing rates among African-American youth, specifically those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender or young men who have sex with men. This strategy combines a skills-based agency readiness training on conducting HIV testing services to marginalized youth (complete with youth specific counseling and testing guidance and protocols) with You Know Different, a youth-driven social marketing campaign . The national social marketing campaign will be launched in the Fall 2005 in Florida, New York, and Washington, DC.

For more information on the National Youth HIV Testing Initiative contact Lara Crutsinger-Perry, Director of Health Programs, at lara@nyacyouth.org or (202) 319-7596 ext. 18.

National Training Institute For Youth Health Leadership Project

Through a cooperative agreement with the Office of Minority Health, NYAC launched the first annual National Training Institute for Youth Health Leadership during the summer of 2005. Participating agencies are listed below. Youth participants received public health training on issues relating to health promotion and wellness, strengthening HIV prevention programs through strategic planning, and peer leadership development.

2007 National Training Institute for Youth Health Leadership Organizational Participants

• The Lifelong AIDS Alliance (Seattle, WA)
• Youth Pride Center (Chicago, IL)
• Working for Togetherness (Chicago, IL)
• Youth Health Empowerment Project (Philadelphia, PA)
• GALAEI (Philadelphia, PA)
• COLOURS, Inc. (Philadelphia, PA)

2006 National Training Institute for Youth Health Leadership Organizational Participants

• The Colours Organization, Inc. (Philadelphia, PA)
• Gay and Lesbian Latino AIDS Education Initiative (GALAEI) (Philadelphia, PA)
• Center on Halstead (Chicago, IL)
• Youth Pride Center (Chicago, IL)
• Lifelong AIDS Alliance (Seattle, WA)
• People of Color Against AIDS Network (POCAAN) (Seattle, WA)

2005 National Training Institute for Youth Health Leadership Organizational Participants

• AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland (Cleveland, OH)
• Bronx AIDS Services (Bronx, NY)
• Bronx Lesbian and Gay Consortium (Bronx, NY)
• The Colours Organization, Inc. (Philadelphia, PA)
• Jacksonville Area Sexual Minority Youth Network, Inc. (Jacksonville, FL)
• Men of Color Motivational Group (Detroit, MI)
• Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League (Washington, DC)
• South Carolina HIV/AIDS Council (Columbia, SC)