Community Support Network

In September of 1984, a group of gay men with experience in nursing, trained volunteers to provide home-care for people impacted by HIV and AIDS. This was the beginning of the Community Support Network (CSN), which grew from the AIDS Support Group and AIDS Home Support, established by Terry Goulden, a founding member of the Gay Counselling Service. In 1985, its care and support services were integrated into ACON.

Bon did something about AIDS today poster. Peter Bonsall-Boone (pictured) was a long-time volunteer for CSN. Poster courtesy of Peter de Waal.

By providing home-care, CSN volunteers not only helped with laundry, meals, cleaning and transportation, they enabled people living with HIV and AIDS to live with dignity in environments where they felt safe. The volunteers who provided home-care came from diverse backgrounds. Some were gay men, some were living with HIV themselves, and others were members of marginalised communities, including transgender men and women and sex workers. There were also heterosexual women and men.

Many volunteered to help in this way because they had friends or families impacted by the epidemic. Others saw that carers were needed and felt they were able to provide this level of support. Historian Jennifer Power notes that in the 1990-1991 financial year, CSN staff and volunteers provided 11,874 shifts for their 173 clients, amounting to more than 72,000 hours of care.

*Circular* letter from Community Support Network regarding carers, c.1991. *Image courtesy of the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives.*

Extract: Perry Head interviewed by Anisa Puri.

Extract: Perry Head interviewed by Anisa Puri. Perry reflects on how volunteer carer training changed after the arrival of new medication in September 1996 transformed the experience of HIV/AIDS into a manageable and chronic condition, rather than one likely to be fatal.

Extract: Perry Head interviewed by Anisa Puri. Perry served on the CSN Committee in the mid/late 1990s.

Extract: Tess Ziems interviewed by Shirleene Robinson.

Extract: Tess Ziems interviewed by Shirleene Robinson. Tess trained as a volunteer carer in 1989, she assisted the training manager each weekend for five years, she was a carer support person, and became the CSN manager in 1994. She has remained at ACON, in a range of capacities, ever since.