To our valued colleagues, it is with great pleasure that the HIV and Related Programs (HARP) Unit announce the winners of the 2018 CaddyShack Awards!

And the winners are….

Outstanding achievement – Encouragement Award Winner: Ryan Potts who is currently studying for a Social Work Degree at the University of Wollongong.  In 2017 Ryan completed work placement experience with the First Step Program where his strong work ethic, and infectious enthusiasm to ‘get to know’ his fellow human travellers was much appreciated and admired. Ryan was recently a peer educator for the Yours & Owls festival with the HARP team and has attended numerous HARP health education sessions. Ryan is a strong, young advocate for sexual health, consistently displaying compassion and commitment.   Ryan is a pleasure to work with – his upbeat and authentic personality is at once endearing and supportive.

Outstanding achievement – Service Award Winner: Healthy Cities Illawarra have worked in partnership with the HARP Unit since 2008. Since then the partnership has contributed significant value to not only the sexual health portfolio, but also to the operational expediency of day to day functions for HARP. Having the benefit of an NGO partner has allowed HARP to work with volunteers and peer educators along with creating a HARP Facebook page with a regular reach of over 1000 people per week.

Outstanding achievement – Project Award Winner: NSW Down To Test-Festivals Project is a sexual health social marketing program aiming to improve social norms for condom use and STI testing for young people aged 16 – 29 in NSW. It involves face-to-face activations at music festivals across NSW – a primary setting to engage high-risk young people. It is a partnership project including NSW Health STI Programs Unit(STIPU), Family Planning NSW (FPNSW), the Sexual Health Info-Link (SHIL), the Centre for Social research UNSW, and Local Health District (LHD) Sexual Health Clinics and HARP health promotion teams. On the October long weekend 2018, DTT attended the Yours & Owls festival at Stuart Park Wollongong smashing the current state wide numbers for screens completed. DTT is a professional event with hours of back end set up required to go live for an event which the HARP Unit & ISLHD got to be a part of throughout the preparation and actual delivery. This nomination formally acknowledges the hard work formulated by STIPU getting this project off the ground at a state wide scaled up level and in particular the work of Marty Janssen, the current head of the project.

Outstanding achievement –Individual Award Winner: Joanna Megan has been a SWOP worker covering the Illawarra and Shoalhaven for many years now. Joanna commits to coming down to the ISHBBIN meetings every 3 months to the Illawarra from Sydney. Joanna actively participates in SWOP outreach across our area and is always willing to partner with local services such as HARP, Darcy House and the Illawarra and Shoalhaven Sexual Health Service. Joanna works her hardest to ensure the rights of the local sex workers are upheld and that they are supported in all areas of health and wellbeing.

Congratulations again to all winners, and nominees. We feel honoured to be able to showcase your work, and celebrate your achievement.