Community-based AIDS service organizations: challenges and educational preparation.

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) has been recognized as the health care challenge of the 1980s. Community-based AIDS service organizations have emerged to meet this challenge by providing critical services to people with AIDS at a time when other health and social service systems were slow to respond. Results of a nationwide survey indicate that social workers are fully enmeshed in these new community health care agencies, perform a variety of social work and administrative functions, and face challenges to professional self-awareness. Social work educators need to maintain a strong liberal arts and professional foundation base, and add information about community-based AIDS service organizations to the existing health care curricula.