Leadership Overview

In addition to our role providing direct client services and performing scholarly research, WHP is a leading center for advocacy and health policy.

Our advocacy and health policy focuses on a number of key areas. These areas include:

1. Working closely with Federal agencies to affect changes in health policy
2. Convening groups of experts to coordinate a national response to trauma
3. Partnering with prominent national advocacy organizations, especially those led by and for women with HIV and/or those focused on trauma
4. Advocating for trauma to be effectively addressed by large institutions, foundations and governmental agencies
5. Lectures and speeches to a variety of audiences including students, researchers, trauma experts and clinicians
6. Disseminating our research and innovations through scholarly publications, lectures and in the press

Advocacy & Policy

Effective care for women and girls with HIV requires active engagement with governmental policies that affect this growing population.

Some of our advocacy work includes:

• Co-leading the National Strategy Group on Trauma-informed Primary Care that includes a group of trauma experts, government officials, policy makers and community organizations.
• Presenting our research to the White House Federal Interagency Working Group on the Intersection of HIV/AIDS, Violence Against Women and Girls and Gender-related Health Disparities and being a featured speaker at the launch of its final report.
• Successfully advocating for the inclusion of a focus on trauma in the new 2015 National AIDS Strategy.
• Expert Consultancy to Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) in the effort to develop a national “toolkit” for trauma-informed primary care.
• Formal partnerships with other prominent advocacy organizations including the Positive Women’s Network-USA, the largest organization led by and for women living with HIV; Futures Without Violence, the nation’s foremost domestic violence organization; and The Well Project, the leading patient resource for women and girls with HIV.