WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18

11:00am – 3:30pm: INSTITUTES
1:00 – 4:00pm: HIV PCP INSTITUTE
1:00 – 5:00pm: HIV PNC INSTITUTE
4:00 – 5:30pm: TRACK SESSIONS

THURSDAY, MARCH 19

9:00 – 10:30am: PLENARY SESSION
10:45am – 12:15pm: TRACK SESSIONS
12:30 – 2:00pm: LUNCH PLENARY
2:15 – 3:45pm: TRACK SESSIONS
4:00 – 5:30pm: TRACK SESSIONS

FRIDAY, MARCH 20

9:00 – 10:30am: PLENARY SESSION
10:45am – 12:15pm: TRACK SESSIONS
12:30 – 2:00pm: LUNCH PLENARY

This schedule is preliminary and subject to change.

Hartford Employment Initiative: Addressing Critical Employment Gaps for Persons Living with HIV (PLWH)

HIV Care and Treatment Track
Studio C

The employment landscape for PLWH in the Hartford Transitional Grant Area (TGA) presents significant challenges. According to the 2022 Statewide Needs Assessment Survey, 54.46% of PLWH were unemployed, with 59.46% unemployment within the TGA. Among respondents, 78% of individuals over 50 lacked access to career and life skills training, limiting their ability to secure stable, fulfilling employment.

The Provision of STI Education and HIV Testing among Incarcerated Youth in Alabama

HIV Prevention Track
Studio E

Power of PreventionIn 2022 in Alabama, youth age 13-24 made up the majority of chlamydia and gonorrhea cases, and nearly a quarter of new HIV diagnoses, illustrating the need for STI prevention efforts aimed at this population. Incarcerated youth represent a group more vulnerable to HIV/STI infection than youth in general. The UAB Family Clinic has partnered with the Alabama Department of Youth Services to provide HIV/STI education confidential HIV testing to youth held in detention facilities across the state of Alabama. In 2024, the UAB Family Clinic provided comprehensive HIV/STI education to approximately 350 youth across 3 sites, 268 of whom opted to be tested for HIV.

Transgender Empathy Training: Transforming Understanding Into Action

LGBTQ Health Track
Potomac B

Transgender Empathy Training is an interactive, community-centered educational program designed to cultivate cultural humility, deepen understanding, and expand institutional capacity to support transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive people. Grounded in trauma-informed care, intersectional analysis, and lived experience, this training moves beyond basic terminology and policy compliance to build genuine human connection and sustained allyship.

Unhoused and Unheard: Addressing Structural Racism and STI Risk in Queer Youth Care

LGBTQ Health Track

This presentation examines how housing precarity and systemic bias shape clinical encounters with queer adolescents of color. Drawing from direct clinical practice, supervision, and education within urban community settings, it highlights the ways traditional care models often replicate inequities through rigid policies, pathologizing language, and a lack of intersectional awareness.

Fostering Community within the Community: The Long-Term Survivors Hub for Older Adults Living with HIV

HIV Care and Treatment Track

There is limited programming focused on the health and wellness of long-term survivors of HIV. With people living longer and their needs shifting, the number of resources that are available and accessible to seek care or even social interactions becomes scarce. The Long-Term Survivors Hub (LTS Hub) was created to continue to nurture and foster social engagement among older adults who have lived, worked, and fought for this community.

Accreditation, Credit, and Support

Information on credits offered to SYNC participants for attending institutes, sessions, and plenaries — live or in-person — is available here.

Commercial Support Acknowledgement

This conference is supported, in part, by independent educational grants from ineligible companies. A full list of supporters is available here. All accredited content has been developed and delivered in accordance with the ACCME Standards for Integrity and Independence and the criteria of Joint Accreditation for Interprofessional Continuing Education™, and is free of commercial bias.