Looking ahead: Hopes and plans for 2024

Chiva’s CEO Amanda Ely looks ahead at an ambitious year to come.

Following on from my blog reflecting on the last year, I also wanted to share some thoughts on and plans for the year ahead.

Chiva’s new strategy

To help guide us in achieving our mission to ensure children and young adults who have grown up with HIV become happier, healthier and more in control of their own futures, we will be delivering our work around the following strategic priorities:

  1. Life span holistic support
  2. HIV awareness
  3. Research, evidence, and evaluation.

And with the following strategic objectives:

  1. To develop comprehensive and integrated support that addresses the physical, emotional and social needs of children, young people and young adults living with HIV.
  2. To enhance public awareness and understanding of HIV in the wider population of children and young adults.
  3. To enhance professional understanding of best practices in HIV.
  4. To influence the research and policy agenda to enable prompt identification of emerging needs among young people and ensure these inform policy.
  5. To ensure young people participate fully in the research agenda and in evidence generation.
  6. To assess the impact of Chiva’s support programmes and identify areas for improvement or expansion.
National projects

The key national projects planned for the coming year include:

  • Chiva’s annual conference: March 15, Birmingham.
  • Art is Key: Creative arts project with young adults in April.
  • Families residential: June.
  • Freedom 2 Be camp: August. Recruitment will begin at the end of January.

The Blueprint also kicks off again this month, with online group sessions, one-to-one coaching, and a residential planned for the end of the year.

There will be plenty more regional peer group meetups and continuing work developing creative resources to inform and raise awareness.

New opportunities

There is a current opportunity for professional members to join the Steering Group. The group is made up of professionals working in HIV who lead work at Chiva to provide resources for professionals, aiming to ensure optimum health care is provided to all young people growing up with HIV wherever they are in the UK.

The remit would include working on guidelines and resources for use in clinics, planning surveys and clinic audits, planning and delivering education events and conferences, and helping to ensure key partnerships are developed and maintained with other health organisations. The Steering Group also lead on coordinating responses to calls for evidence, carrying out consultations, and providing representation in commissioning forums. An email inviting members to put themselves forwards for this role has been sent out.

The F2B camp is running again this August and it will be its 15th year. To get involved as a volunteer please find out more here and watch the video below.

Saying goodbye

At the beginning of this year we will be saying goodbye to two valued members of our staff team: Elaine who has been with Chiva for three years and is leaving to go travelling, and Emily who has been with Chiva for a year providing maternity cover.

All of us at Chiva extend our gratitude for the hard work and support provided by Elaine and Emily, and we wish them all the best in their next endeavours.

Here’s to a year of growth, impact, and resilience in 2024.