Happy Pride, Connecticut. June pulls us back outside and back toward each other, and this year it carries a message we want every corner of the state to hear: prevention, care, and dignity are for everybody. No exceptions, no fine print.
Photo: Pexels
This issue is proof of that. You will hear from a community member who claimed pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) on her own terms, get the campaign your committee built and launched, and read what it means now that Connecticut has adopted its 2027 to 2031 HIV plan. There is even a word search at the end, with answers hiding in plain sight throughout these pages.
Thanks, as always, for being the reason any of this reaches the people it is meant for.
Re-entering the dating world at 47 after a 24-year relationship has been both eye-opening and deeply reflective for me. Growing up in a conservative environment, conversations about sexual health were limited, and even now, many straight women do not see PrEP as something meant for them. While I have not fully stepped back into dating yet, there is a real sense of empowerment in knowing that if and when I decide to, I have options to protect myself and take control of my sexual health.
Being a Black woman adds another layer, because culture, upbringing, and lived experiences all influence how we view relationships, risk, and healthcare conversations. That is why representation in education and outreach matters so much.
In my work as an outreach prevention coordinator at Community Health Services (CHS), an inner-city Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in Hartford, I focus on PrEP education, sexually transmitted infection (STI) testing, and dispelling myths. I have seen firsthand how barriers, like messaging that does not reflect middle-aged women, stigma around sexual health conversations, or providers not routinely discussing PrEP with straight women, can prevent women from accessing information and protection. I have also noticed that many straight men over 30 do not see themselves reflected in current PrEP campaigns either, which can make conversations around prevention feel even more disconnected.
What is needed is culturally relevant, relatable education and supportive providers who approach these conversations without judgment. Finding that support personally was empowering for me, and it is one of the reasons I am passionate about helping others feel informed, represented, and able to make choices that protect their health on their own terms.
What Monique describes is the Prevent pillar made personal. Connecticut's plan calls for putting PrEP and prevention within reach of everyone who could benefit, and for outreach that actually reflects the people it hopes to protect. A straight Black woman in her forties, choosing PrEP on her own terms, is that pillar doing exactly what it was written to do.
What Monique just described in the first person is exactly what this campaign sets out to fix. Built by the committee in response to the 2025 Ryan White Needs Assessment, where community members told us plainly that they do not always know PrEP is for everyone, or where to get routine testing, the six-slide carousel is cleared and ready to share statewide. It also rides a tailwind: since January 2023, Connecticut law has asked providers to offer an HIV test to everyone over 13 in primary care and emergency settings, on an opt-out basis.
This is a standing campaign, not a one-day push. The materials live in the folder year-round, so you can run them whenever it fits your community, with moments like National HIV Testing Day on June 27 as a natural time to lean in.
A preview of the carousel. The full set lives in the shareables folder, ready to brand and post.
Open the #ThisIs4U campaign folderShareables page
Applying #ThisIs4U consistently is how we will track posts and gauge reach for the first time at this level of detail. The tag #U=U stands for Undetectable equals Untransmittable: a person on treatment with an undetectable viral load cannot transmit HIV sexually. Routine-testing context: Connecticut Routine HIV Testing Toolkit.
Let us be honest with each other: the Social Media Resource Folder has been underused. We all get one more link a day, and one more is easy to ignore. So this campaign is the pilot to change that. If PACE members use the folder consistently, the rest of CHPC follows.
Inside you will find the new PrEP & Routine Testing campaign assets and a growing community library. The ask is simple: download what you need, post it, and add your own. Testing-day photos, agency flyers, event graphics, all of it makes the folder more useful for the next person.
Browse the resource folderSubmit a material
Part of the myth is that PrEP means one daily pill for one kind of person. It does not. These are the options the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends, all highly effective at preventing HIV when used as prescribed:
Source: HIV.gov and CDC, MMWR 2025.
Every five years, Connecticut sets the roadmap for how it prevents and treats HIV. This month, after a multi-year effort, CHPC members adopted the 2027 to 2031 Integrated HIV Prevention and Care Plan, voting to approve it overwhelmingly: 27 in favor, 1 opposed, and 1 abstention.
This is not a light touch-up. The plan modernizes Connecticut's whole approach and, in its own words, moves the state from managing the epidemic to ending it. It applies a syndemic lens (treating HIV alongside hepatitis C, or HCV, sexually transmitted diseases, or STDs, and substance use disorder, or SUD, rather than in silos) and builds toward a "no wrong door" system where any point of entry connects a person to care.
The plan grew out of community input, including the Ryan White Needs Assessment, and a careful look at the strengths and gaps in each pillar. It was shaped and refined across the consortium's standing committees, the Executive, Ending the Syndemic, Needs Assessment Projects, Quality & Performance Measures, and PACE, and it carries formal Letters of Concurrence from partner planning bodies, including the Ryan White Planning Councils and the Syndemic Partners Group, before members adopted it by vote.
Expand routine, opt-out HIV and HCV testing in ERs and community settings to close the late-testing gap.
Close the viral-suppression gap by removing barriers like housing, transportation, and stigma.
Prioritize long-acting PrEP, doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis (DoxyPEP), condoms, and harm-reduction services.
Detect and respond to clusters faster through surveillance and close community partnership.
Approval was the start, not the finish line. The next five years are about turning these goals into reality in our own communities. That is where PACE comes in, and where you do too: every conversation, every post, every testing day is the plan in motion.
Read the full planArthur Harris had just come from the recording studio and an overnight shift when we talked, and he still gave the conversation his time. A published poet who now records music as Cocoa Blac, he has been living with HIV for nearly seventeen years. He asked that we call this "Getting to know me."
He traces the start to a frightening time. "When I was coming out, around 2009, a lot of people were catching it, and they were really young, like 17 years old. It scared me." The stigma then was heavy, and so was home. His father did not accept his sexuality, and at one point put him out of the house. "A lot of it was survival," he says. He looked for a place to feel accepted, leaning on people like Kamora Herrington, who ran the organization True Colors, and a caseworker who took him places to get involved. Still, the groups he found never quite fit. He wanted to see more people like himself.
Writing is where he puts that down. "It is a coping mechanism," he says. "Whenever I am not in a good space, I write something, a poem or a song, or I journal. It gets out a lot of what I have been holding in." He published his last poetry collection in 2017 and then moved into music. Lately, he says, a lot of people keep telling him to get back into poetry, and he is in a space to do it. James Baldwin and Langston Hughes are the writers he names.
Ask him what people get wrong about HIV and he answers without hesitation. "I would say it is not a death sentence," he says, "and it is not easily caught." He once wrote a poem about having HIV, about the shame and being made to feel like he did not belong, and performed it when he was younger.
What gives him hope is the long view: longer lives, better medications, and maybe, one day, a cure. What worries him is nearer: the people who are falling out of care, or who do not want to know their status, or who do not have insurance to see a doctor. His message to them, and to a younger version of himself, is plain. "It is okay to get tested and take care of yourself," he says. "Live long, live strong."
Arthur Harris performs as Cocoa Blac and is a published poet at work on a new collection. In his words: who I am, as I am.
Arthur has been living well with HIV for nearly seventeen years, which is the Treat pillar in human form. The plan's aim is plain and hard at once: help every person living with HIV stay in care and stay healthy by clearing the barriers, from insurance to stigma, that push people out. Arthur names that gap himself when he worries about the folks falling out of care. His answer is his own life, stay connected, take care of yourself, live long and live strong. And it starts, he reminds us, with a test.
This newsletter is produced by PACE, but PACE is one part of a larger whole. The Connecticut HIV Planning Consortium does its work through standing committees that share the load:
Steers the consortium and reviews products before they go out, including the volunteerism letter below.
Drives strategy across HIV, hepatitis C, STDs, and substance use.
Listens to the community and turns what it hears into evidence.
Keeps the work measurable and accountable.
Recruits, mentors, and gets clear, caring messaging out across the state. That is us.
What you are holding is one of PACE's contributions to that shared effort. The campaign in these pages, the plan you helped approve, the youth subcommittee taking shape: none of it belongs to a single committee. It is the consortium moving together. We meet the third Wednesday of every month, and you do not need a title to take part.
Photo: Pexels
Explore the committees: cthivplanning.org/committees.
Photos: CCMC, CRT, and ACTIn recognition of Hepatitis Awareness Month and National Hepatitis Testing Day, nine partners across Connecticut came together for the 2026 One Big Statewide Testing and Awareness Event to increase awareness, expand access to testing, and strengthen linkage-to-care efforts statewide.
This collaborative initiative focused on education and awareness and a comprehensive approach to syndemic screening through the syndemic screening tool, alongside same-day linkage to treatment, addressing HIV, hepatitis C, and substance use disorder while increasing access to integrated prevention, testing, linkage, and treatment services. The event helped integrate care for individuals impacted by substance use, homelessness, and poverty.
Of the 97 people screened, 87 (90%) were non-reactive and 10 (10%) were hepatitis C antibody positive, with 1 RNA positive. All 10 were linked to follow-up care or treatment, and 1 person initiated treatment on June 1, 2026.
Participants reflected the communities the work is meant to reach: 66 (68%) identified as male and 30 (31%) as female, and 42 (43%) identified as people who use or inject drugs. By generation, 35 (36%) were Millennials (1981 to 1996), 23 (24%) were Baby Boomers (1946 to 1964), and 15 (16%) were Generation X (1965 to 1980). By race and ethnicity, 40 (41%) were White, 23 (24%) Black or African American, 22 (23%) Hispanic or Latino, and the rest other or not reported. (Categories with fewer than five individuals were combined to protect confidentiality.)
Connecticut continues to advance efforts to eliminate hepatitis C as a public health threat by 2030 through expanded screening, prevention, and linkage-to-care initiatives. A major milestone was the release of Connecticut's first-ever Hepatitis C Elimination Plan in Summer 2025, establishing a statewide framework to coordinate action and drive progress.
This event also supported Connecticut's Universal Viral Hepatitis C Testing Law (Section 19a-7o, 2023), which requires hepatitis C screening to be offered to all adults, all pregnant women during each pregnancy, and anyone who requests testing. Using a syndemic approach across HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), viral hepatitis, and substance use disorder (SUD), participants received comprehensive screening and were linked to prevention, care, and treatment. Some were also offered at-home HIV self-testing kits. Participants received campaign materials and HepFreeCT-branded items, including tote bags, umbrellas, folding chairs, and cooler bags, which were especially helpful for individuals experiencing housing insecurity.
We extend sincere gratitude to all community partners, healthcare providers, advocates, and organizations that contributed to this year's successful statewide effort. Your collaboration and commitment are critical to improving access to care and supporting Connecticut's mission to End the Syndemic and eliminate hepatitis C as a public health threat.
A 2025 federal law, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, changes who has to prove they are working in order to keep food help and health coverage. Here is the plain version, with sources so you can check it yourself.
Sources: CT DSS, Federal H.R.1 updates; United Way of Connecticut 211; CT Mirror; CT Mirror, June 2026 (medical frailty).
The Youth Subcommittee held its first orientation this June, in the evening so school-age and working members can attend. It will be featured here every issue as a standing invitation.
Know someone 17 to 24 who would be a good fit? The fastest path in is passing their name straight to Blaise Gilchrist or Jordan Wynn. The group is youth-led by design: members shape what it does, and adults support along the way.
Photo: Walter Coppola / Pexels
No campaign and no statistics here. Just one morning at the shore, and a quiet reminder that all of us, the people living with and working alongside HIV included, deserve peace, warmth, and a good day.
This one does not sit under a single pillar, and that is the point. Connecticut's plan is written to be person-centered, caring for the whole person, mental health and wellbeing included, not just a diagnosis. Jordan's morning, the weight set down and the worries dissolving into the sea, is the quiet thing all four pillars are ultimately for: not only longer lives, but good days to live inside them.
Every word below appears somewhere in this issue. Click and drag across the grid, horizontal, vertical, or diagonal, to find them.
