Senior Health Promotion and Peer Navigation Manager
Andrew Heslop is the Senior Health Promotion and Peer Navigation Manager at Positive Life NSW , responsible for the development of Positive Life’s peer support and navigation programs including advocacy, treatments information, community research and analysis that meet the emerging health and well-being needs of people living with and affected by HIV. He is the Chair of several interagency collaborations including Positive Life’s HIV Complex Care Complex Working Group, Anal Cancer Working Group, HPV Working Group and NSW HIV Housing Interagency. Andrew has over ten years’ experience in operations, training, community engagement, alcohol and other drugs policy/research, gay men’s health and blood borne viruses. He was previously the Blood Borne Virus Peer Outreach Lead and Peer Projects and Training Coordinator at the NSW Users and AIDS Association (NUAA) where he developed innovative health promotion programs for people who inject drugs.
He represents Positive Life on a number of HIV research advisory committees including as a member of the NSW Health/Kirby Institute UNSW Sydney’s HIV PRISM Partnership Prevention working group, and RISE (Recent Diagnosis & the Impact of Support on the Experiences of HIV) Study Project Advisory Group, METHOD Study (Exploring the experience of drug use, sex and wellbeing among gay and bisexual men, trans women and nonbinary people in NSW) Working Group and GoGoVax (multicentred randomised controlled trial evaluating the efficacy of the 4CMebB meningococcal vaccine against Neisseria gonnorrhoeae infection in gay and bisexual men) Management Committee at the Kirby Institute.
Andrew is a Director on the Board of NUAA, and has represented peer-led communities nationally at the Australian Injecting and Illicit Drug Users League (AIVL). He has participated and provided peer contexts to research across the blood borne virus sector, as well as being a member of advisory and working groups for national and jurisdictional HIV and hepatitis C blood borne virus campaigns. Additionally, Andrew has worked in the custodial space, developing peer-based programs in correctional centres across NSW.
Andrew was diagnosed with HIV in 2012, and champions compassionate strengths-based, person-centred practice, social justice, inclusivity and the continuous improvement in quality of life for all people living with HIV in NSW.
