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Rapid Assessment Apparatus Summary Report
The Poz Home Center Foundation
17 July 2015
Introduction
History
The Poz Home Center Foundation was established in 2005 and is the only community-based
organisation, providing HIV care and support services specifically for men who have sex with
men (MSM) and transgender people living in Bangkok, Thailand. It received some pro bono
support from the AIDS Project Management Group (an Australian consulting company),
Their service provides members with a drop-in center, home visits, telephone support and
advice, peer-based one-to-one support and case coordination, group workshops, social
gatherings, cultural events and educational programmes.
One of the most used services is the Three Hearts Programme, which provides case
coordination between the hospital and the home, as well as peer-based programmes for
MSM and transgender people (including MSM and transgender sex workers), who are living
with HIV. The aim of this programme is to prevent MSM and transgender people living with
HIV (PLHIV) from ‘falling through the gaps’ between community and hospital services.
This simple yet effective client pathway service provides a good model for incorporating
outreach and in-reach services to clinics and hospitals which acknowledge the need for, and
create a sense of trust between, the Three Hearts Programme in case coordination with
clients, Poz Home staff and volunteers, and external service providers. Over many years, the
Poz Home Center has built strong relationships across private, specialist, and government
clinics and hospitals, so that PLHIV, and particularly MSM and transgender people affected
by HIV, will have access to services without experiencing stigma and discrimination.
The Rapid Assessment Apparatus (Rap App)
The Rap App is one of the core tools of the JumpStart project, an MSM and transgender
networks capacity strengthening initiative, implemented through a partnership between the
Asia Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health (APCOM) and the Australian Federation of AIDS
Organisations (AFAO) with Australian government funding. The Rap App aims to explore the
strengths and weaknesses of an organisation’s core competencies through analysis of 11 key
organisational development and program areas, as well as six key affected population
engagement sections.
This is a summary report of the data collected during a three-day Rap App meeting, held on
10-12 June 2015 at APCOM and AFAO’s office in Bangkok, with members of the Poz Home
Center Foundation board and staff. Due to time constraints, we continued running the
Technical Plan component of the Rap App and completed the D-Plate on 13 July 2015 at the
Poz Home Center Foundation’s office.
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In general, this Rap App report provides an overview of the strengths of the network, and
identifies technical support requirements to address gaps and needs in organizational
capacity.
Results
A. KEY ORGANISATIONAL AREAS
1. Governance
Score: 12/12
The Poz Home Center was established in 2005 by the current executive director. They
started by constituting a board from existing staff and volunteers chosen by the executive
director, drafting the organisation’s rules and regulations documents, and achieved
registration as a foundation in Thailand in March 2012. This was considered an important
strategic move in order to apply for future funding as an independent organisation.
The board is composed of 5 members who are the President, Vice-President, Treasurer,
Secretary, and one ordinary member. As The Poz Home Center is a care and support
community-based organization, its board members are not appointed on the basis of
representation for key affected populations, but they are expert or experienced on PLHIV
treatment, care, and support issues for MSM and transgender people. One Board member is
transgender; one is a doctor; one is a working on a sex worker project; one is working on a
drug user project; one is a PLHIV. The Poz Home's Director has invited people who are
qualified in various fields to join the board. They prefer people who have experience as a
board member for a community-based organisation. The role of each board position is
documented, and the overall functions of the board are to oversee, monitor, and evaluate
the Foundation’s work.
The Poz Home Center has board meetings twice a year. Minutes are taken, and are reviewed
before distribution to all board members. Outside of official board meetings there is rarely
contact amongst board members. If decisions need to be made outside of meetings this is
done by email so that there is a written record, and is followed up with a phone call.
The Poz Home Center is regularly invited to government meetings and conferences. It is
registered as a foundation and focuses its work in Bangkok and greater Bangkok. The Poz
Home Center is a member of the Ministry of Health Advisory Committee on MSM and
Transgender Health Issues. The Poz Home Center is also on the board of National Committee
Advisory Board (NCAB) - Research and Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender
people (LGBT). Also the Poz Home was invited to join Retro Cab as a board member. This
committee receives advice from the community about research and medical issues for the
Thai Army. Poz Home is a member of the Thai NGO Coalition on AIDS, Thai National
Network of People Living with HIV (TNP+), and is also represented on the board of the Thai
Sexual Diversity Network. The Poz Home Center also has its own network called M-Poz, and
there are 14 member organisations in nine provinces.
According to Thai law, the board members of the Poz Home Center can be appointed to the
board for four years. Board members are appointed by invitation of the executive director.

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2. Staffing
Score: 12/12
The Poz Home Center has 12 full time positions in total. These are: executive director,
administration, human resources, finance, information technology, monitoring and
evaluation officers, two program coordinators, three fulltime activities officers and one
office keeper. All contract, job description and Terms of Reference are all in place. There are
also seven part time activities officers, and some volunteers, The role of volunteers is to
accompany PLHIV members to hospital, participate in hospital activities, provide counselling
for PLHIV including a hotline phone counselling and information service, home visits to
PLHIV, and assistance with social welfare.
Additional to that, there is also a complete set of internal policies and forms, as well as a full
set of procedures documented in Standard Operating Procedures.
3. Finance
Score: 11/12
The Poz Home Center manages its own funds. There is a structured financial and accounting
system for the organisation. There is a finance policy as part of the internal policies manual,
which includes all of the forms needed for compliance with the finance policy. All financial
documents are kept for 5 years.
There are 2 forms of audit - internal and external. The internal one is done by the staff and
board members. The external audits are done by donors as well as an annual external audit
commissioned by the Poz Home Center itself.
There are detailed budgets for each area of activities. The finance staff monitor compliance
with budgets and check that funds are spent according to budgets.
An external auditor carries out the annual financial audit. A donor also does quarterly
financial audits. Finance reports including annual audited report are shared with the board
and with donors, but are not otherwise made public e.g. through the organisation's website
or through an annual report. The organisation believes that there is no interest in seeing
their financial records outside of the staff, board, and donors. The Poz Home Center does
not produce an annual report about the organisation as a whole, but just provides reports to
donors as required. The organisation is still small, and if it grows bigger then they will
consider producing their own annual report including a public financial report.
4. Resource Mobilisation
Score: 7/12
At present, The Poz Home Center only has one source of funding as a sub-recipient under
FHI 360. In the past The Poz Home Center has joined with other organisations as partners
and has led efforts to raise funds (some examples are funding applications to the Elton John
Foundation, and the Local Capacity Initiative funded by the President’s Emergency Plan for

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AIDS relief (PEPFAR). Funding applications have not been successful due to varying levels of
capacity in partner organisations. They do not have the capacity in the organisation now to
write funding proposals in English, but plan to increase their capacity to mobilise additional
funds. They have a board member (the Treasurer) who is now establishing a fundraising
team.
The Poz Home Center is setting up a coffee shop; they have location, funds, and budget for
setting up the coffee shop, which is intended to raise some funds for the organisation.
Chevron will make a donation to the Poz Home Center but the amount is not known yet.
This funding is secure until September 2016, after which there will be the need to secure
new funding agreements.
However, while there are 12 staff members, there is currently only funding for six. The Poz
Home Center does fundraising activities such as donation boxes in entertainment places.
Telephone Bar in Silom Soi 4 provides some money from special fundraising events; it
donates money twice a year which consists of very small grants (around THB 5000), or other
small amounts on a one-off basis. The Poz Home Center also receives invitations to speak
about HIV from private companies, and this generates some income through a donation
from the company. There is a draft Resource Mobilization plan which can be finalised and
implemented without the need for board approval.
5. Partnerships and Networking
Score: 9/12
The Poz Home Center is active in engaging, developing and maintaining partnerships with
other local, national, and regional organisations. Sometimes, they organise activities with
the partners, but most of the time, they only participate or engage with the activities
organised by the partners. The Poz Home Center works with a number of partners in
Bangkok who are also funded by FHI 360, and also provides assistance to other organisations
to establish care and support services, for example for male and female sex workers who are
PLHIV (with SWING), and some times they undertake joint activities on prevention and
testing.
The Poz Home Center created MPoz, which is a platform for engagement between The Poz
Home Center and other organisations in the country which have the same aim in their work.
The communications between The Poz Home Center and its partners are not very active,
with the exception of the donor (FHI360), who they communicate with regularly. Usually,
Poz Home Center representatives attend national and regional HIV conferences.
Next year The Poz Home Center will provide oral swab rapid HIV testing, and will work with
other clinics such as those run by SWING and Rainbow Sky Association of Thailand, who
already provide these services. This should be another platform by which the Poz Home
Center can be more involved with partners.
6. Membership
Score: 10/12

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In terms of membership the Poz Home Center is different from some other organisations, as
their membership is individual people. The Poz Home Center focuses strongly on
establishing and maintaining relationships with their members. Members are their friends
who need support.
Originally The Poz Home Center focussed only on MSM and transgender people who are
living with HIV as their key affected populations, but now some of their members are also
HIV-negative MSM and transgender people as well.
The membership of The Poz Home Center consists of 750 members altogether. There is a
database of records for all members which is regularly updated. Names are not used so that
service users are only identified by a code. The database is secure with restricted access,
based on the need of staff who provide services to access the information it contains. The
database may also be accessed where people have moved regions, and need ID papers in
order to be registered to access services.
Means of communication with members include LINE, Facebook, and group chat on
Facebook, telephone or speaking face-to-face with individual members. Also The Poz Home
creates “Family Days” which provide the opportunity for communication between the
organisation and its members, and members-to-members. At the Family Days, people can
choose a group to join (usually 3) to discuss different topics in HIV treatment, prevention,
testing etc. They generally use the term "friends" rather than “members” or “clients”.
There are no formal procedures for consultation with the membership. There have been
some consultations with members about seven years ago. The board has members from
KAPs including HIV-positive MSM, a transgender woman, a doctor, and a sex work advocate.
Another board member is a former member of APN+, and is also knowledgeable about drug
use issues and HIV.
9. Key Population Engagement
The following sub-sections detail the network’s engagement with specific key affected
populations.
Please note that the Poz Home Center focus their work on access to appropriate health care
services for members who mostly are MSM and transgender people, and particularly those
who live with HIV as the target audience. However, it is possible some of those MSM and
transgender people living with HIV are young people, sex workers, drug users and MSM
themselves, and form part of the organisation’s membership.
9.a. MSM Engagement
Score: 11 /12
MSM issues are integrated into organisational advocacy. The Poz Home Center has a system
to record MSM issues and problems which are reported from the members. The issues and
problems are dealt with by staff according to their expertise.

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Some board members are from the MSM population but are not officially representing the
MSM community. People are appointed to the board for their individual expertise, and the
board has to have expertise on MSM issues.
Some MSM are represented in the membership with an active engagement with the Poz
Home Center.
There are MSM and transgender women employed by the organization. But there is no
discrimination for or against any particular group and people are employed for their
expertise in the areas in which the Poz Home Center works.
The Poz Home Center targets MSM+ specifically. They do not seek the views of the wider
MSM community because they are focused on their clients, or “friends”. There are
brochures at MSM venues and clinical services that provide information about the Poz Home
Center’s services.
The MSM community doesn’t get involved in formal program design processes. The
executive director does the design. MSM community members can suggest improvements
to projects and activities. And information is collected by the Poz Home Center to inform the
development of new projects and services.
There are partnerships with MSM Organizations and commercial venues such as APCOM,
Rainbow Sky Network, SWING, Bangkok Rainbow, M-Poz Networks, saunas, etc. There are
14 organizations which are part of M-Poz. The Poz Home Center’s engagement with APCOM
includes attendance at meetings about MSM and transgender issues, participation in Test
BKK, and receiving a grant for organizational strengthening, as examples.
The Poz Home Center has a plan to extend services to the target population. Now, the Poz
Home Center is expanding the offices and increasing numbers of staff. It is very interested to
engage more with MSM, but there is a need for money. For their care and support program,
they are ready to extend and get bigger, but it depends on more funding being available.
9.b. Transgender Engagement
Score: 11/12
The Poz Home Center focus includes transgender women’s issues, which are integrated into
organizational advocacy. There is a higher number of MSM members, while the transgender
women are also a high priority.
There is one transgender woman on the Poz Home Center board, but she is not officially
representing the transgender community.
Though the number of transgender women in the membership is less than the number of
MSM, some of the transgender women members are actively engaged with the
organisation. For example, they regularly join the family days.
At the Poz Home Center, there is no fulltime transgender woman staff member currently,
but there have been transgender women staff in the past. Currently there are two
transgender women working for the organization as volunteers.

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9.c. Young People Engagement
Score: 6/12
At the moment, there are some young people who are also MSM or transgender women
who are members of the Poz Home Center. The Poz Home Center does not have any specific
advocacy focus on young people at present, but they may in the future. Young key affected
populations have never been represented on the board of the organization, and while some
of them are youth living with HIV, there is a little engagement with the Poz Home Center.
In the past there was one young staff member but he was not from a KAP. In addition, the
board informed us that previously there were young staff living with HIV, but now those
young staff have grown older.
The Poz Home Center’s executive director said there is not any discrimination regarding a
job opportunity at the Poz Home Center. They accept all types of people if they are
appropriately qualified. It does not matter if a staff member will be a man, a woman, a drug
user, an MSM, a transgender person, a sex worker, or a young person.
Regarding sharing information with or receiving information from young KAP (YKAP), there is
not a special focus for young people unless they are affected by the issues that affect other
MSM and transgender people.
However, within their engagement with the YKAP, the Poz Home collected information on
young individual MSM but there is no scope to provide special services. The Poz Home
hopes to provide young MSM and TG services and migrant services more in future.
When asked how the Poz Home Center would like to better engage with the YKAP, they said
it depends on availability of resources, and they plan to increase activity in this area when
they have the resources to do so.
9.d. Sex Workers Engagement
Score: 6/12
The Poz Home Center has rarely done advocacy in relation to sex workers, and does not
currently have it as a priority area for advocacy activities.
Though other organizations such as SWING address advocacy issues for sex workers, the Poz
Home Center provides care and support services to MSM and transgender people who are
sex workers and they are part of the organization’s work indeed. Nonetheless, the Poz Home
does not address sex worker issues in their advocacy priorities except as they fit with Poz
Home Center's core focus. Some of their previous staff had previous work experience as sex
workers.
There is not a special process for sex workers to exchange information with or participate in
the organisation, and the organisation engages with MSM and transgender people who are
PLHIV, regardless of whether they have a history of sex work and/or drug use.

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Once asked if the sex worker community is consulted in project design, they said members'
issues are important for deciding what services to provide. Some members are sex workers
or previous sex workers. Thus they can engage to the same extent as other
members/clients.
When asked about engagement with the sex worker community, they stated that the sex
workers with HIV may access the Poz Home Center services, and become involved in the
organization as members, and joined the activities on the Family Days. Some of them have
joined the team as staff too in the past.
The Poz Home Center has a partnership with sex worker organizations such as SWING, and
Sister (Transgender sex workers). The Poz Home Center has recently trained these
organizations to provide care and support for HIV+ sex workers.
Last but not least, the Poz Home emphasized that their work focus is on MSM and TG issues
with HIV, so sex workers are only a focus to the extent they are within one of these groups.
9.e. PWUD Engagement
Score: 5/12
The score on this part is very low as the Poz Home Center does not focus their work on
PWUD even though there can be some of MSM and transgender people living with HIV as
their members who are PWUD themselves.
The Poz Home Center rarely advocates on PWUD issues, as this is not a current advocacy
priority. No PWUD is on the board or a staff member, as declared by people themselves.
Nevertheless, in the past there were many MSM and transgender people disclosing
themselves as PWUD, but not recently.
In addition, the Poz Home has no particular information sharing arrangements with PWUD,
and no partnership with any organization working on PWUD issues.
However, the Poz Home Center expressed their interest in engaging with MSM and
transgender people who use drugs, they don't have current plans to expand in this area.
9.f. PLHIV Engagement
Score: 12/12
The Poz Home Center has a strong engagement with PLHIV especially MSM and transgender
people. As noted in the first part of this summary report, the Poz Home Center provides
services for MSM and transgender people living in Bangkok, Thailand.
The Poz Home Center provides members and individuals with a drop-in center, home visits,
telephone support and advice, peer-based one-to-one support and case coordination, group
workshops, social gatherings, cultural events and educational programs.
One of the most used services is the Three Hearts Program – which provides case
coordination between the hospital and the home, as well as with peer-based programs for

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MSM and transgender people (including MSM and transgender sex workers), who are living
with HIV. The aim of this program is to prevent MSM and transgender people living with HIV
from ‘falling through the gaps’ between community and hospital services.
There are two MSM PLHIV on the board. And certainly, PLHIV as MSM and transgender
people living with HIV play a big role in the membership, with active engagement.
At the Poz Home Center, a number of PLHIV are employed in different positions in the
organization. The Poz Home Center has a very good and strong relation with other PLHIV
organizations including AFAO and APCOM and they always have regular meetings to discuss
PLHIV issues with their community to share and receive any most current information on
HIV issues.
When asked how the PLHIV Community is consulted in project design, the Poz Home Center
informed us that the project design incorporates information from service users of Poz
Home Center.
The Poz Home agrees that within the engagement with the PLHIV population, they engage
individuals who are part of other or multiple key population groups through the people who
attend Poz Home Center during the Family Days. They also use social media such Facebook
and group line chat, as well as their website to communicate with their members. Telephone
is also used individually.
Concerning partnerships with PLHIV organizations, the Poz Home Center indicated that
there is a lot of liaison and information sharing, among partners and organizations.
However, there is less joint work with other organizations although this happens on some
occasions.
On the issue of better engagement with the PLHIV population, the Poz Home Center said
there is plenty of involvement of people with HIV. It is not necessarily public involvement
but they think it works well for the organization.
KEY PROGRAM AREAS
1. Project Design and Management, including Monitoring and Evaluation
Score: 9/10
In addition to the services described above, the Poz Home has a hotline throughout Thailand
to provide information to callers on health and HIV, prevention and treatment.
Poz Home Center also has a shelter which provides accommodation for people coming to
Bangkok for treatment. It is part of the office premises and is funded from general
office/core costs. There is no separate grant for this service. Level of use of the service varies
from year to year. The costs are not too high for the organization to absorb, and it would be
difficult to apply for separate funding for this part of their work because of varying levels of
demand for it. Poz Home Center has developed a strategic plan which guides the project
activities.
Poz Home Center has developed, and implements and monitors, an annual organisational
work plan. Comprehensive work plans are also developed and monitored regularly for all

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core and project work. Each unit also has a work plan which the executive director uses to
monitor the organization’s activities. This happens at the monthly staff meetings. As well as
the monthly staff meeting, additional staff meetings are held as needed.
The current monitoring and evaluation (M&E) plan was written by the executive director as
the M&E officer had resigned. Financial data is collected by the database officer from people
involved in implementing the program. The finance officer also reviews and validates
financial information. There are both internal and external audits. They are in the process of
implementing a quality assurance and quality improvement system. So far it has been used
only with campaigns, but will eventually be used for all of the organization’s work. The
Standard Operating Procedures manual is used for quality assurance purposes.
Next year the Poz Home Center will implement oral swab rapid HIV testing. A donor has
agreed to support this project.
2. Technical Capacity
Score: 12/12
The Poz Home stated that they are strong in all of the following areas: HIV, human rights
KAP issues. They further explained that the project team has strong knowledge in all areas
referred to in the Rap App, as well as other skills needed for treatment and care. Other staff
in the secretariat have sufficient knowledge of HIV, human rights and KAP issues
The organization knows how to source technical support when needed. They explained that
they know the areas where technical support is needed and how to source this support. It
was discussed that there are many sources of technical support such as FHI360, PSI, and
APCOM, and Poz Home Center can access technical support when needed. They also said
they have had many resources produced by other organisations which assist in their work.
Also they have received information and support from nurses, doctors, and other clinical
service providers. This includes clinical treatment of HIV and opportunistic infections. The
information is shared in the organisation. Clinical staff often invite Poz Home Center workers
to information and education sessions about HIV and related issues.
The Poz Home Center regularly provides technical supports to their members or other
organizations. Training is provided to other NGOs on HIV care and support issues.
Information is also regularly provided at Family Days. Support to other organizations is now
regularly provided starting from 2015, and will continue in future.
Moreover, the Poz Home provided a list of key technical competencies together with
comments in their organizational capacity as follows:
 Human rights: Address these issues in their program work and through advocacy.
 HIV prevention: Core work
 HIV treatment: Core work
 HIV care: Core work
 Advocacy: ED is member of MOH advisory committee and raises MSM and TG issues.
Advocacy includes human rights issues. Work with other organizations.
 Gender: Particularly transgender issues and MSM issues
 SOGI: All their work is with and for MSM and transgender

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 Communication: Focus on internal communications with members and service users
e.g. IEC and BCC, access to services, with partners and networks
 Media: Not a core area
When asked which areas would the organization prioritizes for further strengthening, The
Poz Home addressed that they are interested in engaging with MSM and transgender
migrants and youth, especially PLHIV, and undocumented migrants.
Current sources of technical support include AFAO and APCOM who provide capacity-
building support, as well as PSI, FHI360, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Red Cross Society, Pact
Thailand, and AIDS Project Management Group. Also, they specified they were supported in
capacity building for the organization including development of Standard Operating
Procedures, human resources, finance systems, M&E including a database system, and
strategic planning.
3. Advocacy Capacity and Priority Advocacy Issues
Score: 5/12
The Poz Home Center is a health care service organization rather than an advocacy
organization. It is therefore not surprising that the score in this part is just 5 out of 12 which
is the lowest compared to all areas discussed. The Poz Home Center does not often initiate
advocacy activities, but participates in discussions on advocacy issues which take place at
partner meetings. Advocacy activities are not documented.
Some advocacy issues and priorities have been identified, but there is not an agreement
across the organisation about these. There is agreement that the main advocacy issue is the
welfare of PLHIV MSM and transgender people. There is no written advocacy plan.
The top three issues the Poz Home Center identified were: 1. Treatment, care and support
for MSM PLHIV. 2. Treatment, care and support for transgender PLHIV. 3. Positive
prevention.
The Poz Home Center gave some examples of advocacy activities or tools that the
organization has used to address these issues. Advocacy starts with solving the problem of
the individual members, such as speaking with doctors and nurses, meetings with Ministry
of Health (MOH) and meetings with networks. There was an issue where some hospitals
were not accepting Golden Cards (used for the 30 baht scheme) and saying their quota has
been filled. But MOH clarified that there is no quota under the 30 baht scheme, and all
patients should be admitted as long as any beds are available. Another issue was PLHIV
travelling, who needed access to ART. Following advocacy from the Poz Home Center, the
MOH ensured that people can pick up an emergency supply of ART at any hospital.
Even though the Poz Home Center does not consider itself an advocacy organization,
advocacy was discussed further. Speaking about the main advocacy target audience of the
organization, they would include the MOH; health service providers, Ministry of Social
Development and Human Security; Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare; and migrant
workers. SWING, SISTER, Rainbow Sky Network, and Thai Red Cross play a role as the Poz
Home Center’s main advocacy partners.

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The Poz Home Center conducts advocacy activities to influence service delivery as well as to
influence policy development and decision-making, by giving input to Ministry of Health
Advisory Committees, and to health services areas by discussing issues with health care
workers such as doctors and nurses.
The Poz Home Center said that there is limited engagement with global policy issues. There
is some awareness from sources such as internet petitions, and the organization is aware of
regional and global policy discussions and debates.
The specific advocacy skills which the Poz Home Center would like to further develop across
the organisation are policy analysis, and advocacy strategic planning. Writing in English as
well as specific advocacy activity planning are also challenges for them. At present, the Poz
Home Center prefers to maintain a primary focus on service delivery.
Additional information about the organization’s advocacy capacity is as following:
 The Poz Home Center is a member of regional and national networks and Ministry of
Health committees, all of which function as advocacy platforms.
 The organization never works with the media, as they are concerned about
members’ confidentiality.
 The organization receives funding for care and support services and does not have
funding for advocacy work, or a lot of experience in this area.
4. Communications
Score: 7/12
The organization’s main means of communication internally are regular communication with
members through telephone, face-to-face meetings, a web board on their website, and
social media such as a Facebook page. The website is a channel to disseminate general
information on the organization. Most of the time, they communicate with partners via
meetings, conferences, or telephone officially. Email is not commonly used for
communication with members.
The Poz Home’s main means of communication externally are limited. Communication is
mainly with members and partner organizations. There is very little interaction with the
media. There has been some use of YouTube to provide information about the Poz Home,
but it is still mainly used among staff and members.
Overall, there are limits to communication with members. There is a closed Facebook page
for members to communicate with each other and the organization. Many members are
unwilling to use this forum because of concerns about disclosing their HIV status. Only a
small proportion of people who could use the closed page actually use it.
All staff have access to internet, computer, and email accounts. They do not primarily use
these means of communication, and the organisation does not have a communication plan
or strategy. The primary focus of communication across the network is information sharing
on MSM and transgender related issues that they can highlight. This is an area where the
organisation could benefit from technical support to evaluate and make recommendations
regarding efficient and effective communication both internally and externally.

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5. Strategic Information
Score: 9/12
The Poz Home Center has regular sourcing of strategic information through internet,
partners meetings, and consultation with members and stakeholders. Strategic information
is collected from a wide range of government, NGO, partner, and other sources, and used in
designing projects and all aspects of the organization’s work.
The organization regularly distributes strategic information internally to members, board
and staff. They further explained that previously information was distributed by newsletter
but they are no longer funded for this. Now they rely on social media for communication of
strategic information.
The Poz Home Center secures access to SI in many ways such as meeting with UN agencies,
the government, other NGOs as well as INGOs. Also, they receive the SI from journals,
particular websites, conferences, and regional networks.
In addition, the organization has surveyed members about the services they need, and this
has informed the organization’s work. They would like to do more research relating to
member needs and appropriate service provision but do not have funds for this.
The Poz Home Center sees the Thai Red Cross AIDS Research Centre, UNAIDS, and the
Ministry of Health as the key organizations producing relevant SI at national and regional
levels. APCOM is recognized as a reliable producer of SI but the information is not available
in Thai mostly. They also have some SI on care and support, but a lot of the publications are
not directly relevant.
Links to these organisations have arisen in various ways. The relationship with the Thai Red
Cross AIDS Research Centre is from personal links, and face-to-face meetings. Also there are
some partners they work with in referral of cases. With UNAIDS, they have built up a
relationship by attending meetings occasionally by invitation. APCOM has provided some
funds and some information. The relationship with Ministry of Health started by the Poz
Home Center attending meetings by invitation.
Other information the Poz Home Center provided us regarding the organisation’s use of
strategic information included the following:
 The organization does not translate international SI into local languages.
 The organization is involved in research studies by being a member of Community
Advisory Boards for various research studies.
 The organization produces their own strategic information: Some information IS
collected from members during service provision.
 There is a lack of SI about implementation of programs at the field level, methods of
working, what is effective, and what is not effective.
I. Summary of Recommended Technical Support

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The Rap App provides the Poz Home Center with a snapshot of their strengths and identifies
areas where technical support would further strengthen the organisation. The Rap App
indicates that the Poz Home Center is relatively strong in the areas of Governance,
Secretariat/Staffing, Project Design and Management, Finance, Membership and Technical
Capacity.
The network would benefit from technical support in the areas of Partnerships and
Networking, Strategic Information, Communication, and Advocacy Capacity.
Engagement with key populations is stronger for PLHIV including MSM and transgender
people. However those MSM and transgender people living with HIV can be young MSM, sex
workers, and people using drugs, but the organization does not have the intention to
develop specific strategies to engage with the young people, sex workers and people using
drugs as a priority.
Based on the results of the Rap App and a verbal discussion, the Poz Home Center has
identified some key technical support needs:
Short term:
1. Developing a strategic plan for the period 2016-2020. The previous strategic plan
expired in 2014. They hope to be supported by FHI and AHF, as well as hospitals and
public health centres. Also, they hope APCOM and AFAO will be able to support
them with funding.
2. Implementing a community clinic in 2016 at the newly open office. The organization
would like APCOM and AFAO to support resource mobilisation efforts to fund the
clinic.
3. Arranging more strategic and effective meetings among members to facilitate
members’ engagement, better understand their needs, and give them a forum in
which to express their views.
4. Developing better follow-up processes or methods in order to follow up members
more effectively. For example, in the case that a member changes a phone number,
there should be alternative means of maintaining communication in the short term.
5. To translate, design and give away WHO guidelines, with support from AFAO and
APCOM on the artwork and design
Medium term:
1. Develop more effective communication skills among staff. The organization seeks
volunteers and individual trainers to support on this.
2. Develop staff to be able to manage documents in English.
Long term:
1. Funding for human resources development.
2. Maximize staff capacity and training.
3. Ensure regular trainings for staff to be effective recruiters and trainers of volunteers.
4. Develop business marketing plans for the Poz Home Center coffee shop, and expand
the business to help provide sustainable funding.
5. Develop products and packaging for the Poz Home Center's businesses.
6. Support from a business consultant.
7. Implement finger scans for membership that will be developed by the Poz Home’s IT
officer.

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8. Recruit staff to coordinate the M-Poz Networks.
1. Secure sustainable funding to continue the activities with the M-Poz Networks.
2. Technical medical support.
3. Support for writing proposals in English. The Poz Home Center would like APCOM
and AFAO to support them with proposal writing.
4. Present useful information to stakeholders more frequently and comprehensively.
5. Improve digital media to be able to communicate with members more effectively
6. To develop an application that will allow the Poz Home Center to follow up with
members on their health management.