Community Led Crisis Response Systems: A Handbook Based on the Experience of the Avahan India AIDS Initiative

"Crisis response has developed out of the need to create an enabling environment in which KPs [key populations] feel safe and confident enough to access HIV services and change high-risk behaviors. Crisis response also makes peer educators...safer from harassment or arrest..."

Community-led crisis response is a method of addressing and preventing the violence, abuse, harassment, and discrimination that frequently affect populations most at risk of acquiring HIV. In a crisis response system, trained teams of key populations (KPs) respond rapidly and in person to incidents of violence against other KPs. They provide hands-on practical and emotional support to resolve issues and work to ensure that the legal rights of the affected person are respected and his/her health needs are looked after.

This handbook, which incorporates insights from the Avahan India AIDS Initiative (see Related Summaries, below), aims to provide operational guidance to managers of HIV prevention programmes in setting up and managing the initial stages of a community-led crisis response system. In brief, Avahan is a comprehensive HIV prevention intervention covering KPs - female sex workers (FSWs), high-risk men who have sex with men (HR-MSM), transgender persons, and injecting drug users (IDUs) - in 82 districts across 6 Indian states where there is a high prevalence of HIV. Based on the experiences of grassroots non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the handbook offers practical, operational guidance on setting up and managing a community-led crisis response system, describing how to tailor systems to local contexts and providing multiple examples of administrative and organisational tools.

In addition to describing the kinds of violence that KPs encounter, Section 1 summarises the broad approach used by Avahan to set up and operate crisis response systems for KPs. The process of establishing a crisis response system is presented as a series of steps, which include:

1. Assess the need for and nature of crisis response
2. Organise the crisis response team (including: a team of designated community members, a supportive team of PEs, experienced lawyer(s), and close alliances with well-known local activists and media representatives)
3. Train the team members
4. Implement crisis response
5. Report and analyse data (e.g., using mobile phones, business cards or fliers printed with crisis hotline numbers, and crisis response reporting forms)
6. Educate the KPs and the police ("KPs who are poorly educated or illiterate may take some time to become accustomed to the idea that they have the same legal rights as other citizens. Once this happens, they may raise new or recurring legal issues that they face. Regular legal literacy workshops can be held to address these. This is a key role for the response team's legal resource persons and is likely to form the most substantial part of their work for the crisis response system.")
7. Build public acceptance and support for crisis response (e.g., by working with the media, networking with other groups, and/or advocating with the government)
8. Manage crisis response and integrate it with advocacy

It is noted that crisis response must be community-led to be effective and sustainable, so, throughout the process, community members must shape the effort. "While the NGO implementing the HIV intervention will play an important role in developing and refining the crisis response system, it is important to manage the process in a way that ensures that KPs participate in its leadership from the beginning and gain the skills needed to take over its management." This section also describes the organisational responsibilities and resources required and the issues that must be addressed in scaling up a network of crisis response systems at a regional or state level.

Section 2 goes beyond this general approach to consider possible variations in the structure and implementation of crisis response, based on the experience of Avahan's partners. The idea is to show how individual crisis response systems adapt to differences in geography, sociopolitical context, and the ways KPs interact.

Section 3 provides examples of the administrative and communication materials that are essential to making crisis response systems work, including position descriptions, organisational charts, and publicity materials, as well as materials for recording and reporting crisis incidents and outcomes.

The goal of this resource is that KPs feel safer and also support the HIV prevention work of peer educators (PEs). "The reassurance that they can call someone if they encounter a threatening situation can help KPs assert their personal and collective right to safety." Furthermore, community members' support for one another in crisis situations "may be a stepping stone for them to take action on other fronts. It may prompt the formation of formal and informal community groups. This may be a more sustainable and effective way for them to organize and advocate for their rights."

Editor's note, September 28 2017: Our apologies, but this document is no longer available online.