Our Leeds Skyline HIV support service is a free, safe and confidential service which offers both emotional and practical support . Our services include peer mentoring, counselling, support and activity groups. We also provide information, advice and advocacy; emotional support and massage therapies. All our services are free and confidential.

We hope you are well and coping with our current and ever-changing times.

As you know, at the start of the pandemic, we moved all our services to be delivered by phone or online following government guidance and in order to safeguard our staff, volunteers and clients. As restrictions have started to lift, we have spent the last few months assessing and reviewing our services and developed a framework for work. This framework outlines how we will continue to deliver some services remotely or digitally where appropriate but also recognises that for some services and some people, face to face contact may be more effective or allow people to feel more connected.

As part of this framework, we will start to implement a phased approach and reopen our offices from 10th August. However, this will initially be only for a limited number of services which have been fully risk assessed and where we are able to maintain social distancing and other measures detailed below.

To ensure the safety of our staff, volunteers and service users, our premises and office space have been fully risk assessed to reduce the risk of transmission.

From Monday 10th August, we will be opening the office for face-to-face appointments with a support worker or our therapist, Angela Lavery. In order to maintain social distancing, we will only have a limited number of appointments which must be pre-booked.

Appointments for a Support Worker will be available on Mondays and Thursdays, from 10-4pm.

In order to have an appointment with a Support Worker, you will need to:

· Call ahead to book an appointment

· Arrive on time

· Arrive alone

· If you are early for your appointment, you will need to wait outside the office until your appointment time

· If you arrive without an appointment, unfortunately we will not be able to see you

· We ask everyone to use hand sanitizer on arrival and wear a face covering for the duration of your visit (these can be provided where required). If you can’t for medical reasons, this will need to be discussed when you call to book your time slot.

· You will need to leave as soon as your appointment ends

These measures have been put in place to help us stick to government guidelines and keep you, our staff and our volunteers safe. Unfortunately, we will need to ask you to leave the premises if you do not follow these guidelines. We need to carefully manage the amount of people in the space at any one time, and this means no longer having the office as a drop in space. We will also not be re-starting face-to-face groups or be offering complementary therapies at this time and this will be reviewed later. I’m sure you will appreciate that if anything significant changes, we may need to make changes at short notice.

In this initial phase, we will have the following staff available:

· Mondays – Lilly (07493 329 464) and Andi (07787 297 540)

· Thursdays – Hilda (07554 084 545)

We will also resume sessions with our therapist, Angela Lavery, on these set days. If you would like to be referred for sessions with Angela, please discuss with your support worker.

We look forward to welcoming you back, and hope that you have all been keeping well.

The Skyline Tea

We are still offering all this support as well as the limited office hours:

• 1-2-1 support form a support worker via the phone or video calling.
• Peer support via the phone or video calling
• PACT  – weekly group zoom chat social
• Well-being – weekly zoom chat, sewing together
• Empower – Weekly Zoom Chat

Alternatively please follow our social medias at

• facebook/BHALeedsSkyline
• instgram/BHALeedsSkyline
• twitter @BHALeedsSkyline

These have more contact numbers and regular useful updates.

If you would like more information about HIV and COVID19 please follow the links here:

https://www.bhiva.org/Coronavirus-COVID-19

https://www.unaids.org/en/covid19

https://www.leedsth.nhs.uk/a-z-of-services/hiv-outpatient-service/worried-about-coronavirus/