Save the date banner for next year’s conference, to be held from 14th to 17th September in Melbourne

That’s the end of the Joint Australasian HIV&AIDS and ASRH Conferences. For various reasons, it’s been a while since I attended a sexual health conference, and this was a great one to come back to. Lots of familiar faces and fascinating presentations. Looking forward to 2026! #HIVAIDS2025 #ASRH2025

The closing Q&A is tying the four presentations together really neatly, with Joanne Bryant specifically citing examples from each of the other three speakers that reflect the “relational” strengths-based approach she introduced at the start of the session #HIVAIDS2025 #ASRH2025

Strengths-based approaches actions 1. Engagement way before starting the grant application 2. Partnership agreements with Aboriginal organisations a. Who owners the data, IP, authorship on papers (first/ last authors) 3. Community benefits not academic benefits - MY promotion, papers, grants 4. Hiring First Nations people as project manager not just to recruit or interviewers 6. PhD scholarships - knowing an Indigenous person to accept the PhD scholarships. Lets Including a PhD scholarship and then worry about find someone after we win = handing to a white PhD student 6. First Nations Cis early in the list, not just the one at the end of the list 7. The deficit approach is great for a grant application

Next Generation Youth Cohort Study • Pre-grant engagement and long lead up period • Indigenous led • Partnerships with local organisations at data collection sites • Aboriginal ethics committees • Indigenous PhD students • Indigenous leads salaries paid for at sites • Feedback sessions of analyses conducted • Engagement about what would you like to see for phase 2 grant

Next Generation Youth Cohort Study • Pre-grant engagement and long lead up period • Indigenous led • Partnerships with local organisations at data collection sites • Aboriginal ethics committees • Indigenous PhD students • Indigenous leads salaries paid for at sites • Feedback sessions of analyses conducted • Engagement about what would you like to see for phase 2 grant

Simon Graham taking a novel angle on strengths-based approaches to sexual health research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people by opening talking explicitly about funding - how things are done, how they should be done, and some examples of doing it well #HIVAIDS2025 #ASRH2025

A diagram showing duty of care balanced against dignity of risk on a continuum between overprotection and neglect, with the centre point labeled risk enablement

Risk Enablement • Risk enablement, also called positive risk taking, is a way of supporting people which helps to maintain people's choice and control over activities.

Margaret explains many use the “duty of care” to justify “protecting” people with disability FROM sex but a strengths-based approach involves balancing duty of care with the dignity of risk to facilitate healthy risk enablement - neither overprotection or neglect #HIVAIDS2025 #ASRH2025

Factors which affect the persons with intellectual disability exercising their right to sexual intimacy, and parenthood • Societal threat (legacy of eugenics discourse) • Ableism • Deficit Approach • Risk-averse practices

Being strengths-based involves: 1. Being Disability-Informed 2. Engaging well 3. Adopting a risk enablement approach 4. Prioritising supported decision-making 5. Fostering circles of support

Next speaker Margaret Spencer now articulating the principles of strengths-based approaches to reproductive rights with women with intellectual disability - a three-way combination that many working the sexual and reproductive health space might find challenging #HIVAIDS2025 #ASRH2025

TO CONCLUDE 2SLGBTQ+ communities are not utopias free from violence. What the study found, however, was that much of this violence reflected the reproduction of cisheteronormativity and the settler colonial logics of objectification, domination, and conquest Queer and trans sexual joy confronted these logics and seemed to alchemize them. Through script breaking, participants described greater authenticity, embodied pleasure, care, and reciprocity vis a vis queer and trans sexual joy.

JJ refers to “script breaking” as the process by which study participants accessed the authenticity, care and reciprocity encapsulated by “queer and trans sexual joy” #HIVAIDS2025 #ASRH2025

JJ Wright joining via video call from their brightly lit living room

By highlighting queer sexual joy as a place to imagine sexual cultures away from rape culture, we might loosen up the rigid dominant sexual scripts and find more flexibility, ease, and joy in sex despite the ambiguitics inherent to it.

Study participants talked about their struggle with homophobia and transphobia as mediating if not co-constructed the euphoria and joy of their subversive sexual and gender formations. Over 80% identified as survivors of gender-based violence.

JJ Wright joining remotely from Canada to share some incredible work on queer and trans joy as disruptive to heteronormativity, patriarchy, shame and rape culture. Delighted to see pleasure foregrounded as a strength at conference that often has a heavy biomedical focus #HIVAIDS2025 #ASRH2025

Critically, she’s not saying either approach is “wrong”: individual framing of strengths and resilience can be effective and important in one-on-one work with young people, but this approach proves lacking in the context of research and policy #HIVAIDS2025 #ASRH2025

Logics of individualism ('strengths' found within individuals and immediate environments) Logics of relationalities (strengths' found in relationships, goods and opportunities) Individualising logics can.. Cast young people as not 'resilient-enough' • Perpetuate approaches that focus on changing individual behaviours and choices • Hides other ways of understanding 'strengths-based approaches Relational logics can…. Shift focus to changing relationships, goods and opportunities within networks

Joanne says that what we call “strengths” can be understood through two logics: logics of individualism and logics or relationalities, which position strengths as fixed traits residing in an individual vs as social practices and community resources #HIVAIDS2025 #ASHR2025

Joanne presenting in front of a slide that reads Main approaches Broadly characterised: "positive adaptation within the context of adversity" (Alessi et al., 2020:11240) Main language and concepts: 1. Resilience (n=19) 2. Protective factors (n=13) 3. Resilience and protective factors (n= 12) 4. Social capital (n=16)

Joanne Bryant opens session on strengths-based approaches in sexual and reproductive health research by summarising the main approaches identified in the literature to “strengths-based” work with marginalised young people #HIVAIDS2025 #ASRH2025

A painting featuring the four horsemen of the Apocalypse from the Christian Bible’s Book of Revelation

Nothing subtle about using this image to open a presentation on the global implications of funding cuts to HIV-related aid in the current political climate, but the data presented by Felicity Young from Health Equity Matters justifies the bold choice #HIVAIDS2025

Jen presenting in front of a slide that reads NAVIGATING BELONGING Experiences of racism and exclusion "Culturaly it's very different how I grew up, so I guess even like after being In Australia for 7 years now I stil find it sometimes can be a fittle bit (ot a) struggle because of my race (-|I guess just because of my appearance it's very different than what Australian society looks Tke." - NSW, HIV Resilience and empowerment through HIV experience I think you know because the health care system that treated me well when I first diagnosed positive in Victoria, I was inspired to work in the heath care setting, that's why I've chosen to work in (heath field)"-Adam, VIC, 30s Representation fosters belonging and safety It's just the fact that when as a client if I go to a group, a peer group, a service, and I con see someone of my skin colour there, I know I will be safe. That is why having representation of the groups we're trying to reach In the work is so important." - NSW, community health promotion officer

This jumped out at me from Jen Power’s presentation on intersections of HIV and migration and quality of life for Asian-born MSM living with HIV, drawn from HIV Futures. This theme of “belonging” appeared throughout the data, re: community but also care, reflecting importance of peers #HIVAIDS2025

Bella, Steve, Heather, Ben, Daniel and Jen sitting along a panel-style table in front of an introductory slide with their names and the title of the session on it (Affiliate Organisation Session: BiSHH: Understanding sexual health and HIV needs and risks of Australian bi+ people)

Bella, Heather, Jen, Ben and Steve posing for a group photo. They are all wearing conference lanyards and Heather and Steve are both wearing bisexual flag colours

Heather speaking at the podium in front of her “conclusions” slide. Conclusions • Our sample of participants lived across all regions of Australia. • Bi+ people have a wide range of gender and sexual identities. • Fewer than half of participants were out to their healthcare professionals. • Bi+ people experience adverse health outcomes compared to the general Australian population: • Higher probable mental illness. • Higher levels of recent drug use including injecting drug use. • More likely to have ever experienced sexual violence and coercion.

Huge honour to present the Bi+ Sexual Health and HIV Study today at the conference with some of our amazing investigator team. I’ve had such a great time with this piece of work and I can’t wait for us to really start digging into the data and writing up what we find #HIVAIDS2025 #ASRH2025

Day one of the #ASHM #HIVAIDS2025 conference in my hometown.

So much work to do!

Pleased to share results of our discrete choice experiment of the influence of HIV on organ procurement and allocation in Australia #HIVAIDS2025

#healthequity #IDsky #HIVsky #TxIDsky #PhD

Findings: Our orgs want cheap reach into our PLWHIV communities for our messages and community development BUT it isn't working anymore. Reach is limited. AND social media less safe. Workshop participant We've done quite a bit of thinking about how, as an organisation, we're going to manage those group conversations [on messaging apps] - given that there's a sort of 24/7 potential for people to be engaging and talking. And how we work around moderation, and our staff's right to switch off, and all of those kind of things. Manager

Kath’s participants identified social media as a site of risk for workplace health and safety for people doing sexual health work in the digital space - this reflects my own experience but I feel it’s gotten so much worse in just the last few years #HIVAIDS2025 #ASRH2025 @katha.bsky.social

Supporting digital capabilities in a way that also supports rights and autonomy means moving away from an understanding of the term that relies on individual knowledge. Individual knowledge is insufficient in situations of systems and governance failure #HIVAIDS2025 #ASRH2025 @katha.bsky.social

Why are digital capabilities important for the HIN sector? • Digital and data technologies are central to both health and social support systems and community experiences of connection, wellbeing & learning • 'Digital health' is not the same thing as 'digital public health' • Digital content moderation policies often flag HIV/SRH content as 'against community standards' • Targeted harassment and surveillance of marginalised communities is increasing - impacting health consumers and health organisations.

Digital transformation policy environment National Strategies and Plans • The Digital Health Blueprint and Action Plan 2023 - 2033, Australian Department of Health and Aged Care • The Digital Health Action Plan, 2023 • National Digital Health Strategy 2023-2028, Australian Digital Health Agency • National Digital Health Strategy and Roadmap 2023 - 2028, ADHA • National Digital Health Capability Action Plan, 2023 • Australian Digital Health Capability Framework, ADHA/AIDH, 2024 Platform content moderation policies • Meta's 'community notes' fact-checking model 2025 • Meta's changes to hateful conduct policy to allow more 'free speech' 2025 International Guidance • Global Strategy on Digital health 2020-2025 - WHO, 2020 *recently extended until 2027. • Guidance on the rights-based ethical use of digital technologies in HIV and health programmes - UNDP, 2021 • UNICEF Safer Chatbots Implementation Guide - UNICEF, 2022 • The role of artificial intelligence in sexual and reproductive health and rights - WHO, 2024 • Digital transformation handbook for primary health care - WHO, 2024 e-Safety Office • Online Safety Act 2021 • Industry codes and standards (ratified 2025) • Phase 1: illegal content (eg. child exploitation material) • Phase 2: preventing young people from accessing “inappropriate' content

The amazing @katha.bsky.social presenting on building digital capabilities in hostile social media environments. The context stuff is fascinating - this has been a deeply weird but also vitally important four year period for Kath to have been leading this research #HIVAIDS2025 #ASRH2025

Results from the attitudes section of the survey showing disapproval of the current model and support for a model where HIV transmission is managed by the Public Health Authorities and only intentional or deliberate transmission is criminalised

Survey participants opposed criminalisation and showed strong understanding of U=U. Only 3% agreed that police should manage HIV transmission and 4% agreed the current system is fair #HIVAIDS2025 #ASRH2025

Intro slide Policed, or protected? Insights from the HIV Criminalisation Survey in Aotearoa New Zealand

Context • People living with HIV may face prosecution under the Crimes Act (1961) for: o HIV non-disclosure, o transmission, or o exposure during sex (if not using a condom). • Aotearoa New Zealand has one of the highest rates of HIV criminalisation per capita globally. • Public Health Act (1956) • No research to date.

Brooke and Rodrigo from Burnett Foundation Aotearoa presenting findings from a survey on HIV criminalisation. I wasn’t aware of this context of HIV criminalisation in NZ - one of the highest rates of criminalisation per capital in the world #HIVAIDS2025 #ASRH2025

Lucy presenting key points from the Ombudsman report The Ombudsman report The Act is mostly being used in cases where there is no real risk of a worker contracting a blood-borne disease 2. We saw no evidence that the Act is improving the health and wellbeing of workers 3. Protections for third parties are ineffective 4. The Act is disproportionately impacting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people 5. There are legal complications with testing by consent 6. Senior officers of agencies are ill-equipped to be making determinations about MTOs, and decision-making processes within the NSWPF seem particularly poor

Beth presenting a slide that says This is a national issue • MDT laws in: NSW, Vic, QLD, WA, NT, SA • Laws differ in terms of: o Penalties for non-compliance e.g. WA: up to $12,000 fine or 12 months' Imprisonment. • Who can be tested, how are they safeguarded? e.g. SA: exposure likely, no appeal. o Police powers e.g. NT: detention 'as long as reasonably necessary' • Decision-making authority o Transparency: FOI?

Lucy presenting a slide that says So what now? • Statutory review commencing late September • Public vs targeted consultation • Advocate for repeal vs amendment

I’m at the Joint Australasian HIV&AIDS and ASRH Conferences on Kaurna country this week - currently listening to Lucy and Beth from ACON presenting on the fight to repeal “spitting laws” (mandatory testing) in NSW #HIVAIDS2025 #ASHR2025

🥼 #HIVUnwrapped is coming to the Australasian HIV&AIDS and Sexual & Reproductive Health Conferences between 15-18 September!

It will feature 15 garments from around the world, including 5 new Australian creations and 6 displayed at #IAS2025 in Rwanda.

#HIVAIDS2025 #ASRH2025