Risk: understanding and navigate (the run program) - health initiatives for youth (hify), a nationally respected developer of youth-centered health education and empowerment programs with nearly 30…

Risk: understanding and navigate (the run program) - health initiatives for youth (hify), a nationally respected developer of youth-centered health education and empowerment programs with nearly 30 years of experience, proposes to implement risk: understand and navigate (the run program), a multifaceted HIV and substance misuse prevention intervention that serves at-risk youth predominately ages 15-18 in SAN francisco, with an emphasis on low-income young men of color and lgbtq+ youth. Hify will train youth leaders from these communities so that they have knowledge to share with their peer groups about risk and prevention, and gain experience navigating local youth care resources that they can pass on. In SAN francisco, men who have SEX with men (MSM) are still at greatest risk in the HIV epidemic, and latino and african american MSM are at increasing and disproportionate risk. Within our target age range, some young men are "out" as GAY or bisexual and some may be experimenting, unsure of their orientation, or "on the down low." hify therefore proposes to engage: (1) low-income young men of color-particularly african americans and latinos; and (2) out lgbtq youth of color, regardless of gender, recognizing that young GAY and bisexual men and transgender youth are at disproportionate risk for HIV and all are at disproportionate risk for substance misuse. The goals of the proposed intervention are: - to increase knowledge among youth leaders of HIV and substance use risks generally, and to develop their specific awareness of personal risk. - to increase youth leaders' knowledge of risk reduction strategies, confidence in their ability to implement them, and willingness to employ them (if sexually active/substance using). - to increase youth leaders' access to health services and testing, and lay the groundwork for awareness of their own sero-status. - to increase the capacity of youth-serving substance misuse service providers and other youth-serving health/social service providers to understand connections between sexual health risk and substance use for youth and address these with the youth they serve. - to build capacity locally to deliver and amplify youth-focused social media messaging that reinforces HIV and substance misuse risk awareness and/or risk reduction empowerment. Recognizing the diversity of our target population hify will use one or more of the following evidence-based practices (ebps) in our workshop series: be proud! Be responsible!, being a responsible teen (bart), and focus on youth. Hify will also provide training to youth-serving providers to build their capacity on substance misuse and HIV issues. Hify expects to engage 275 youth leaders (35 in year 1 and 60 per year after that) and 180 providers (20 in year 1 and 40 per year after that) over the course of the five years.