Client Support Services
Director of Support Services
Alissa Jefferson Viscome
Case Managers often meet their clients at a difficult and frenetic point in their lives. They have just been diagnosed with HIV. Where do they get medical care? How can they afford to live? Who will raise their children? “I’m going to die,” they often say, and it’s a Case Manager’s job to lead them to the knowledge that their life, though it has been forever altered, can be full, healthy and meaningful.
AIDS has changed over time. In 1983, ACR was a refuge for those with no hope of living beyond a few weeks or months. Our early clients were almost exclusively white gay men who had exhausted their resources.
By 2008, the infection rate among women had skyrocketed and the leading cause of HIV infection is heterosexual sex. Women make up 45% of our client base and many of them have young families. Nearly a third of our clients are now over 50 years of age; many were diagnosed 20 years ago. ACR Case Managers are trained to address family dynamics; school, custody and behavioral issues as well as assisting consumers with medical, housing, and income challenges.
Keeping clients’ lives stable and their health under control can be exacting and difficult, but it is vital work and central to AIDS Community Resources’ mission. Many of our clients tell us that the HIV diagnosis they once thought was a death sentence, was in fact a disguised opportunity to re-evaluate their life and health choices.
Clients have credited Support Services staff with “saving their lives” by providing continued support during the dark days immediately following the original diagnosis; by helping to overcome obstacles to care; by helping them see that with commitment and treatment there is plenty of life ahead…a future many thought they would never live to see.
Alissa Jefferson Viscome