Terry Blakley, assistant professor of social work, says the HIV and AIDS epidemic is not getting better. In fact, it�s getting worse, and women are particularly hard hit.

�Men die with people around them,� she explained. Many of them are gay, and they have a great support group. Women die alone, because they�re the caregivers, and there�s no one left.�

Blakley is particularly concerned about women considered extremely vulnerable to HIV and AIDS: women of color who are of child bearing age. She spent the past eight years working with such women at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital in their Women�s Mental Health Research Program.

�The death rate is increasing,� Blakley said. �We�ve got to find ways to get the message out�especially in urban areas�to those at greatest risk for HIV and AIDS who have the greatest risk behaviors.�

Blakley moved to Miami from South Africa, where she served as a Southern Baptist missionary working with street children. She thought about where she would serve in Miami. Who were the people who needed her most?

�After my experiences with a thrown away population, I looked for the people in Miami who were also thrown away and invisible,� she explained. �I chose those with HIV and AIDS.�

Though she was a social worker, Blakley knew very little about dealing with that particular population. She turned to professionals who did and began training.

�I worked in hospital wards and centers where they dealt with HIV and AIDS,� she said. �Eventually I ended up at the University of Miami, where they have a comprehensive program.�

She began working in a new program, the Women�s Mental Health Research Program, where she had the opportunity to help women.

�The program was operated primarily by social workers,� she said. �The patients were mainly indigent, mostly African-American and Haitian.�

After a few years, Blakley began work on a Ph.D. at the University of Miami and began her own research. She continued to work full-time at the hospital and took classes at night.

�Among the women I worked with, so many indicated they had been sexually abused,� she said. �The hypothesis in my research was that that abuse made them predisposed for at-risk behaviors. I wanted to know if they were set up for HIV because of this abuse. �

Blakley put up flyers in Liberty City, a hot zone in Miami for sexually transmitted diseases and violence, and asked for volunteers to participate in her study. She recruited 75 women who were HIV positive and 75 who were HIV negative, all primarily indigent African-Americans.

�My hypothesis was unfounded,� she said, �but the results were astounding. I found both populations were highly at risk because of sexual or drug use behaviors. But the HIV-positive women were at least coming to the medical center. They had some kind of support because of their disease. Those who were HIV-negative did not have access to social workers, medical care or information about their at-risk behaviors. There were zero services available to them.�

Both groups were highly distressed and extremely vulnerable, Blakley said. Some estimated they had had more than 999 sexual partners and said they had injected drugs. Others had been sexually abused in some way� even tortured.

�If these women weren�t already HIV-positive, they were at grave risk for HIV and AIDS,� Blakley said. �I suspect that some of them already had it and didn�t even know it. It brought home to me the gravity of the situation for them.�

Moving from Miami to Jackson, Tenn., changed Blakley�s focus somewhat, but the same problems are here.

�Now that I�m in Tennessee, I find that the concern here is for African-American women,� she said. �They will still be HIV-positive in Nashville, in Memphis and, yes, in Jackson.�

At Union, Blakley is handing the baton to the next generation.

�It is critical for students I train to have a solid understanding,� she said. �It is our business to stand shoulder to shoulder with the most vulnerable population across our globe. My passion is that my students get that, that they understand at the deepest gut level. I want them also to have the foundational skills at this undergraduate level to be the best social workers possible. The disenfranchised deserve the best social workers possible, but they often get nothing.�