Together in Service

SWLEARN - Sex Worker Lived Experience Affirming Research Network -- Collaborating with UCLA, UCSF, and two other Los Angeles-based community organizations, Together in Service is undergoing a multi-year HIV intervention adaptation and implementation science research project. We are aiming to administer a six-session workshop series to over 100 trans women of color who do sex work in Los Angeles county and measure how effective that workshop series is in improving several public health-related outcomes, including relating to HIV treatment and prevention. In 2024, we finished adapting the intervention we had chosen using the ADAPT-ITT framework, prepared to begin running the sessions, prepared materials for Institutional Review Board approval, and scheduled a site visit with the funder, California HIV/AIDS Research Program. In the longer term, we hope this project will both provide a tested workshop series for people to run in the future, as well as help to show that research based on community collaborations that is led by the sub-population of interest can lead to higher quality research overall.

SWANS - Sex Worker Abortion Navigation Services -- Thanks to California's Abortion Practical Support Fund (and the elbow grease of our stipended volunteers -- & the unpaid volunteers who came before them), we are able to help provide practical support to sex workers facing difficult circumstances who are seeking to obtain lawful abortions in California. We have a team of peer navigators who are trained and equipped to help arrange--and pay for, as necessary--appointments, after care, childcare, lodging, transportion, or any other urgent needs that are preventing someone from obtaining an abortion. In 2024, we helped connect dozens of people to sexual and reproductive health services, including by directly aiding clients seeking abortion care, and helped train several sex workers in how to assist members of their communities in obtaining reproductive health care.