This course provides a comprehensive overview of HIV/AIDS, including biomedical, psychological, sociological, and global considerations for prevention and care. The course is intended to familiarize students with current knowledge for culturally competent direct social work practice with HIV-positive individuals and their families. In addition, attention is focused on organizational, community and policy level responses to AIDS. Specific topics include medical and cultural origins of HIV; multi-level prevention strategies and barriers to their enactment, including stigma; legal and ethical aspects of prevention, testing, and treatment; psychosocial issues for families of HIV-positive persons, including the implications of grieving, death, and dying; clinical skills in assisting HIV-positive clients/patients; ways to assess comprehensiveness of services offered in and for varying communities; social workers’ varying roles in responding to AIDS as a social and health problem; and, current research and policy implications of the illness. Note: Includes a minimum of 12 hours of volunteer work related to HIV/AIDS.