ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the efforts of one community in a midsize city to develop and implement a multidisciplinary coordinated plan for providing services to children affected by the illness or death of a parent from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) /Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The possibility of premature death is an overwhelming challenge for any parent to contemplate, and the threatening loss is compounded by the stigma attached to HIV disease in our society. AIDS is heavily stigmatized in small cities, and there is a conspiracy of silence among family members and other caregivers about drug use and HIV/AIDS. By and large, ongoing monitoring of guardianship arrangements resulting from AIDS-related parental death is nonexistent. New York State’s Working Committee on HIV, Children and Families projects that 500 children will experience maternal loss from HIV/AIDS in the Rochester, New York region by the year 2000.
