State of the Damien Center

Date

June 25, 2020

Category

News

State of the Damien Center

State of the Damien Center

Please join us in watching this video of Damien Center President and CEO, Alan Witchey, as he discusses several exciting changes to the center.

We’re incredibly grateful that you care about the Damien Center and support its mission. The security you provide to clients—the knowledge that we have a community that will pitch in to make sure that everyone can make it through a crisis—is worth a great deal.

One Home for HIV Wellness

In 2019, after receiving extensive feedback from clients, stakeholders, and staff members, there was a general consensus - the existing Damien Center brand did not capture the organization’s identity. Our friends at Young & Laramore collaborated with our team to identify a new logo and brand identity that spoke to the Damien Center as it stands in 2020 - diverse, client focused, and community driven.

The new logo pays homage to the original Damien Center logo, a logo that represented multi-culturalism, diversity, and unity. Thank you to our friends at Young & Laramore for making our vision a reality.

With a new brand identity comes a new website, and we are excited to provide you with a sneak peak of the new Damien Center website - arriving later this fall!

Expanded Services & New Initiatives

Last week, we released the results of the LGBTQ+ Needs Assessment. The needs assessment was a survey with many collaborative community partners and would not have been possible without their support. Among the results, we observed a lack in access to culturally competent mental health counseling, a distinct lack of LGBTQ+ competent medical care, the need for more youth support, and additional hate crimes protections so our LGBTQ+ family feels safe in their community. This report will drive our efforts to better serve the LGBTQ+ community and we will be looking at how we can offer support in terms of mental health, housing, healthcare, and youth services without being HIV specific.

Damien Center is proud to stand committed to racial justice in our community. Our first step to addressing our own biases in order to better serve vulnerable communities is to announce a new program geared toward outreach and engagement for Black and Latinx populations to continue to break down barriers to access care.

The next initiative we are proud to announce is the creation of Damien Pharmacy! We have had a fantastic relationship with Walgreens over the past few years, but in 2021, Damien Pharmacy will officially open on-site. The new pharmacy will ensure equitable access to medications, allow same-day medications for patients, and become a new revenue stream for expanding existing programs to best serve our community.

As we look to the future, we will also be implementing a youth services program addressing youth homelessness. In addition to this, we will be looking at ways to expand emplyoment services and return-to-work programs as we head into uncertain times.

For a quick recap, Damien Center is:

  • Expanding LGBTQ+ Services
  • Developing New Youth Services
  • Committing to Racial Justice and Outreach to Black/Latinx Communities
  • Opening Damien Pharmacy
  • Broadening Employment Services
  • Bolstering Supportive Services
  • Ending the Epidemic

We are drawing a line in the sand. In the next ten years, the Damien Center team is committed to ending HIV in our community. In the next ten years, we envision a world with lower HIV transmission rates, a lower viral load across the community, and increased linkage to and retention in care.

But we cannot do this without you. As we move into the future, we need the support of our donors, volunteers, and the entire community to end HIV in Central Indiana.