A remarkable advocate and teacher: Lindsay Kincaide leaves a legacy of care

WATERMARK MOST REMARKABLE PEOPLE 2015

Lindsay Kincaide is leaving her position as director of clinical services at the Center this month after a 15-month tenure, but the body of work that she has done for Central Florida’s LGBT community remains.

“The Center was the first community-based organization in this area offering free Hepatitis C testing, which I brought in,” Kincaide says.” I’m trying to make sure that our programs here in Orlando are cutting edge, that they provide the best services possible to clients, and that was providing them with more than just HIV screenings. They needed Hep C. They needed STIs.”

Kincaide applied for a grant and partnered with the Florida Department of Health to serve this need. Thanks to her efforts, The Center now offers free Hepatitis C testing seven days a week. In addition, it provides free STI testing on Mondays.

She also brought in an Affordable Care Act healthcare navigator, who can help clients enroll in health insurance on Thursdays.

“My big push was to help people in our community, LGBT people, get access to healthcare,” she says.

Another push for Kincaide was education. She has helped organize events to raise awareness about breast cancer, PrEP and nPEP.

“I was very proud that myself and [former executive director of the Center] Russell Walker planned the first community PrEP forum last February,” Kincaide says. “I’m working on another forum for next February that’s going to be focused on physicians in the area because we’re really getting the community up to speed on what PrEP and nPEP is, but we need more providers to be aware of it too. The physicians will be my next target.”

Kincaide is stepping down from her position in order to complete her master’s in clinical mental health through an internship with Healing Tree, which provides counseling for abused children, but she will still be involved doing work for Impulse, Hope and Help and, of course, The Center.

“I mean the Center will always be my home. I love it. I will never stop being a part of the Center. But I am excited that in my new positions, I’m going to get to do work that is still directly related to HIV,” Kincaide says. “Children and young adults who experience violence are at a higher risk of HIV, so I feel by doing therapy with this population, I’m in fact also doing HIV prevention.”

Kincaide says she is most proud of “reinvigorating the program and letting the community know the volunteers know and my predecessor know what this program is capable of, so that they know that really the sky’s the limit, that there’s nothing that they can’t do if they have the vision.”

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