Conference

About the conference

This year the HIV Peer Practice Conference builds on the success of the HIV Peer Navigation conference held in partnership with Gilead Sciences in 2025 in Brisbane. That event saw forty people including both peer navigators and peer support workers and volunteers come together for engaging and dynamic workshops and training.

This year we have broadened the conference theme to explicitly acknowledge the importance of listening to and supporting our colleagues working and volunteering in peer support roles, while still making space for the issues and challenges facing peer navigators in everyday practice. It will also include sessions on treatments, science, social research and policy-making around HIV.

The conference will be held on Mon 29 and Tues 30 June 2026 at the ACE Hotel in Sydney CBD. Travel and accommodation will be covered by NAPWHA and organised by our event partner Eventful. The event is funded by NAPWHA with generous assistance from ViiV Healthcare Australia.

Apply to take part in the conference

  • The application form is now available.
  • Applications will close on Sunday 3rd May 11.59PM AEST Thursday 30 April 2026 at 5PM AEST.
  • Apologies, please disregard the ‘Sun 2nd May’ date provided in some communications!
  • Applications will be reviewed the following week by the NAPWHA Secretariat.
  • We anticipate notifying successful applicants on Friday, 8 May 2026 at 12 noon AEST.

The application process has been developed to ensure everyone gets a fair chance to participate and that the overall mix of participants represents the diversity of the HIV positive community in Australia. For this reason the application form asks some optional questions about your demographics. You do not have to answer these questions but answering them will help us ensure the mix of participants is inclusive and representative.

Apply now

Eligibility criteria

You need to demonstrate at least one of the following in your application:

  1. You work in HIV peer support, HIV peer navigation or a clearly related role. This includes people who have left such a role in the past 12 months and aim to return to a similar role within the next 12 months.
  2. You are a volunteer in an HIV peer support role and have a letter from a senior manager at an HIV community organisation describing the tasks you regularly undertake in this role.
  3. You work in a role that is directly relevant to the provision of HIV peer support/navigation, such as a program manager, team leader, policy analyst or program development worker, who directly supports these programs e.g. by writing guidelines or funding applications.
  4. You are someone who needs to understand how peer support/navigation programs work in order to support them with appropriate social research, policy and strategy or funding arrangements.

All participants must also commit to maintaining the confidentiality of all participants in the conference.

Ensuring inclusion and representation

In addition to inviting both peer support and navigation practitioners we are seeking a participant mix that includes people who:

  1. Commenced working or volunteering in a peer support/navigation role within the last 2 years.
  2. Work or volunteer in a small jurisdiction (ACT, NT, SA, TAS, WA).
  3. Live, and work or volunteer, outside a major metropolitan centre (any jurisdiction)
  4. Actively contribute to the work of one or more NAPWHA networks, which include:
    • First Nations people in Australia or New Zealand
    • Migrants and other culturally diverse communities
    • Women living with HIV
    • Heterosexual people living with HIV
    • Bi+ people with HIV
  5. Come from an African community and live with HIV
  6. Belong to a gender or sexually diverse community
  7. Are long-term survivors with HIV (20+ years since diagnosis)
  8. Are someone over 50 years of age living with HIV
  9. Are someone under 30 years of age living with HIV

Answering the optional demographic questions helps us understand if you belong to any of these groups.

Code of conduct for applications

Here are some important things we encourage you to consider when applying to take part:

  1. Tell the truth about your role and eligibility in your application;
  2. Be supportive of other people and their applications;
  3. Your application is enough — you don’t need to lobby NAPWHA or anyone else.

Preparing your application

For the 2025 conference we asked all applicants to write an abstract of approximately 150 words about an emerging issue and we selected eight abstracts for presentation at the opening conference session.

In 2026 you will have the option of writing either an abstract or a personal statement up to 300 words. In your abstract you can describe an emerging or neglected issue or write a case study designed for discussion in a workshop session.

To provide tips and strategies for writing an effective abstract or compelling personal statement, NAPWHA will hold a webinar on Monday, 20 April 2026 at 1-2PM AEST (Syd/Melb/Bris time). Click here to register for the webinar. The webinar will be recorded and made available afterwards. It will cover topics like what to include, using engaging and dynamic language, and how to make effective use of AI tools.

We strongly encourage you to attend the webinar and ask questions there, and to seek advice and assistance from your local HIV community organisation to prepare your application.

Participants are welcome to use AI tools to draft their abstract or personal statement, however, we recommend providing your AI tool of choice with a detailed ‘prompt’ (your description of desired output) in order to craft an application that is detailed, relevant and truthful.

Presenting at the conference

To help you prepare to present at the conference, NAPWHA will hold a further webinar on writing and presenting a manuscript on Monday 11th May 2026 1-2PM AEST (Syd/Melb/Bris time). Click here to register for the webinar.

Enquiries

Enquiries about the conference program and activities can be directed to:

Enquiries about travel and accommodation (once you have been invited to participate):