Share your story with Staying Negative

About the campaign

The Staying Negative Project was launched in 2004 by the Health Promotion Program as a result of the rising numbers of HIV infections in Victoria each year. Research was telling us that a lack of information about how HIV is transmitted was not the problem – that most MSM knew about condoms and lube. So what was stopping men from using this knowledge to protect themselves from HIV in a sustained way? The Staying Negative Project was designed to help isolate and highlight the various sorts of issues that stood in the way of sustained HIV prevention for MSM.

It aims to do this by engaging with the community on a practical level. By finding out how people from the community have managed to ‘Stay Negative’ it allows us as well as others from the community to see what kinds of issues stand in the way of HIV prevention. It also provides a forum for HIV positive men to discuss how their strategies to staying HIV negative were not successful.

Staying Negative is a unique sexual health and wellbeing website that helps gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men to identify those obstacles and provides personal strategies to overcome them.

Get involved

Participants in Staying Negative undergo an interview and are consulted in every step of the editing process. We have a number of confidentiality processes in place and our most important principle is that NOTHING appears on the website until it has been completely approved by the person sharing their story.

Do you think you story might be able to add something to the mix?

If you think you might be interested in telling your story and would like to find out more about the process, call Ilan Werbeloff at the VAC/GMHC Health Promotion Team on (03) 9865 6700, or email him at ilan_werbeloff@vicaids.asn.au

The process

Outlined below is the process to place your story on the site

• The Interview – We will coordinate a time with you to conduct an interview. We anticipate that the interview will run for approximately one hour.
• After the interview your story will be transcribed by a member of the Health Promotion Team.
• We will also organise a time for a photo shoot.
• We will then send you the transcript of the interview so that you can remove any details that make you feel uncomfortable. You are also welcome to add any details to your story for clarity.
• We will send you a copy of your photo’s and you can choose which photo you prefer for use on the site.
• Once you send us back the edited story we will go through and make the changes you have requested. We will also separate your story into chapters. (As seen on the site)
• Once this is finished we send this back to you for approval. You are still welcome to change anything you feel is not to your liking.
• We will continue this process until you are 100% happy with your narrative.
• Then we will put in Clickthrough’s which will provide people with Health Promotion information based on the themes that are raised in your story.
• This will then be sent to the Website Developer who will put it up on the site.

Important

It is important to note: This is your story! We are not happy with it if you are not happy with it. The process can be stopped at any stage and if you change your mind once the story is on the site, we will happily remove it. You maintain ultimate control of the process.