Richard Velez

Richard Velez is the Senior Outreach Coordinator for Parent/Preadolescent Training for HIV Prevention (PATH-3). He coordinates the activities of outreach workers; ensures the accuracy of contact sheets for all visited sites; establishes outreach borders; collects observational field, narrative and statistical data; conducts outreach to those participants who have moved or been relocated; and produces daily reports of outreach activities. He also contacts participants by phone or through home visits to make appointments for in- depth research interviews, and provides community residents with resource and referral services. Prior to his current position, Mr. Velez worked as a Health Educator with the Men’s Jail Health Project on Riker’s Island, leading health groups on topics such as HIV prevention and STIs, and providing health education discharge planning, working especially with MSM populations. He also maintained post-discharge contact with participants, including facilitating entitlements workshops and providing assistance with housing and job training, in order to ease community reentry and to decrease chances for reincarceration. He is highly experienced in street-level case management and intervention, and in health education in jail settings. Mr. Velez has gone into shooting galleries, crack houses, high-risk drug areas, and substance use treatment settings in order to perform his public health duties. He consequently is well-versed in client-friendly substance use counseling, in HIV testing pre- and post-test counseling, in HCV testing and treatment facilities, and in incremental client-centered behavioral change techniques. He has performed thousands of referrals to substance use treatment programs using guidelines from regional technology transfer centers and has trained many outreach workers in these techniques. He is pursuing postsecondary studies through Bard College’s Clemente Course in the Humanities.

Presentations:

Krauss, B., O’Day, J., Rente, K., & Velez, R. (2006, July). HIV stigma. Workshop presentation. NIMH International Conference on the Role of Families in Preventing and Adapting to HIV/AIDS, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Krauss, B., O’Day, J., Godfrey, C., Minian, N., Rivera, Z., Velez, R., Freidin, E., & Neal, S. (2005, July). Invited address. HIV, community violence, and the September 11, 2001 disasters: Challenges in family adjustment. The National Institute of Mental Health Annual International Research Conference on the Role of Families in Preventing and Adapting to HIV/AIDS, Brooklyn, NY.

Velez, R. (2004, July). Poster presentation. The transformative nature of outreach and recruitment. The National Institute of Mental Health Annual International Research Conference on the Role of Families in Preventing and Adapting to HIV/AIDS, Atlanta, GA.

Krauss, B., Aledort, N., Velez, R., & Curtain, S. (2003, April). Families living on the edge: Interventions for families living in poverty. Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing Spring Forum, New York, NY. Krauss, B., Lara, J., Tapia, M., Brione, E., O’Day, J., Pride, J., & Velez, R. (2002, July). Workshop presentation. Now I really get it: Teaching parents to apply HIV knowledge and information in new situations. The National Institute of Mental Health Annual International Research Conference on the Role of Families in Preventing and Adapting to HIV/AIDS, Miami, FL.

Krauss, B., Rees, D., Godfrey, C., Yee, D., O’Day, J., Daniels, T., Pride, J., Jones, Y., & Velez, R. (2001, April). Workshop presentation. Training parents to be effective HIV prevention educators to their pre-adolescent children. National Development and Research Institutes, Training Institute, New York, NY.