About Us

Our Mission:

Face to Face connects our Sonoma County community to the practical care & support that honors dignity for all.

Since 1983, Face to Face has addressed the ever-changing challenges presented by the HIV epidemic in and to the communities of Sonoma County. We continue to develop innovative and effective programs to best serve our clients and the public at large.

The HIV/AIDS environment is changing due to advances in medical care. An HIV diagnosis is no longer an imminent death sentence. Instead, the focus becomes eliminating new infections and supporting HIV/AIDS-affected individuals so that they can live an independent and healthy life for many years. Face to Face is committed to providing the essential care necessary to help reconnect our clients with their vitality and well-being.

We advance our mission with programs and services in three areas: Care Services for people living with HIV, HIV Prevention, and HIV/HCV Testing. 

The goal of our Care Services program is to encourage well-being, healing and independence for everyone we serve. We recognize that for an individual to maintain medical care, adherence to medications, and healthy living, they need to be free of major life stresses. We provide comprehensive case management to assist our clients with challenges they face. We offer benefits counseling and emergency financial assistance so that those too ill to work have access to regular income. Additionally, we deliver homeless prevention services, housing assistance, and permanent supportive housing to assure that our clients are stably housed. The National AIDS Housing Coalition reports that “For people living with HIV, housing is one of the strongest predictors of their access to treatment, their health outcomes, and how long they will live.” Additional services offered include transportation to medical appointments and specialized services for women, transgender, families and the Latinx community. We help our clients stay linked to medical care, so that they are able to achieve and maintain an undetectable viral load.

The goal of our Prevention Education program is to reach those at highest risk of HIV infection with proven intervention strategies, strong supportive messaging, educational materials and condoms. In 2015, we started a Syringe Services Program that provides sterile injecting equipment and proper disposal for people who inject drugs; overdose prevention education including Naloxone distribution; and access to care and treatment for substance use.  

Our HIV Testing Program provides free anonymous and confidential rapid HIV and Hepatitis C testing to any person 13 or older. Our test counselors are certified by the State Office of AIDS to provide HIV testing and counseling as well as integrated HIV/HepC testing. At our office testing is provided on a drop-in basis 32 hours a week. We also regularly provide HIV and HepC testing at the Sonoma County Adult Detention Facilities as an optional service for those inmates that request it. By request and/or need, staff will go in the community and provide onsite testing, and other prevention services at various locations. We are the only test site in Sonoma County providing the CDC supported interventions Personalized Cognitive Counseling and Couples HIV Testing and Counseling. We also provide mobile testing services, attending events such as Pride, Cinco de Mayo, Health Fairs, and many more.

As the future of HIV/AIDS in Sonoma County continues to expand its complexity, we are constantly looking at our systems of service delivery. Face to Face has always sought to provide the most efficient and effective delivery of care services to our clients with an eye for those with the most critical need. We intend to remain committed to HIV prevention, in hopes of ensuring a safer, healthier future for all.

Statement of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Face to Face remains committed to diversity, equity and inclusion, as these  values have always been at the core of our mission. Indeed HIV has and continues to be driven by stigma, discrimination, and major racial, ethnic, sexual orientation, socioeconomic and even geographical inequities, and exists along every step of the care continuum. We focus on the fundamental contextual factors for the disease; to end HIV, we must address the poverty and social inequity that drive it. 

HIV impacts a diverse group of people, many of whom have been marginalized by society. Embracing diversity means we are effective at addressing HIV.

Equitable access to all services is essential for ending the HIV epidemic.

Born of the AIDS activists fighting for their human rights and access to treatment and services- “nothing about us without us” – we reflect the communities we serve and work to make sure everyone feels empowered to bring their full, authentic selves to the work.

Our society has oppressed Black/African American people for centuries. Likewise, indigenous communities, Latinx and other people of color have also been systematically oppressed. We act in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, seizing the challenges and opportunities before us to stand against racial oppression and injustice.

As society evolves, so too do we, recognizing it is more important than ever to be self-reflective and reaffirm our commitment to these values, in order to best meet the needs of our whole community. We will continue to identify and take actions to rise to the challenges before us, in order to be part of the solution.