Shared responsibilities: black community groups, black HIV specialists and the statutory sector working together in HIV/AIDS prevention and care

Abstract

The following chapters in this section will highlight the realities of healthy alliance practice and the different approaches and relationships involved in creating partnerships. In this opening chapter to section two of the book there is an exploration of the importance of organisational development support to black voluntary sector organisations in their role in HIV prevention, and an examination of the effects that this support has in both enabling healthy alliances to take place and sustaining the partnerships that arise from alliance work. The chapter is based on the findings of a seven-month consultancy commissioned by the National AIDS Trust in 1996 and on reflections of other related pieces of work on organisational development support involving black community groups working together in the health promotion field. All references to black are based on the premise that this also includes people of different ethnic minority backgrounds living in the UK.