SPNS/Fax: An Electronic Report from HRSA/HAB's SPNS Cooperative Agreements:
Volume 3, Issue 7 (April 3, 1998)

This document has been superceded by our Online Knowledge Base on Innovative Models of HIV/AIDS Care. Click here to access the Knowledge Base. Click here to access descriptions of 27 Innovative Models of HIV/AIDS Care and the lessons learned from these projects. SPNS/Fax was written, published, and distributed by fax by The Measurement Group between 1995 and 1998.

Information dissemination from 27 Innovative Models of HIV Care projects funded as Special Projects of National Significance by the HIV/AIDS Bureau (HAB) of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).

Introduction

Welcome to SPNS/Fax: An Electronic Report from HRSA/HAB's SPNS Cooperative Agreements. In each issue of SPNS/Fax, we will highlight findings from the HRSA Special Projects of National Significance Program Cooperative Agreements. The projects have been funded to develop innovative models of HIV/AIDS care. SPNS/Fax reports are distributed every two weeks by fax machine to all subscribers. All issues of SPNS/Fax are also available at this Web site. Due to slight differences in the media, issues distributed by fax machine may appear slightly different from those posted on this Web site, but the content is identical.

Infrastructure-Advocacy Work Group Strives to Improve HIV Care Services

As part of their involvement in the overall Cooperative Agreement Steering Committee, the Infrastructure-Advocacy Work Group shares the common goal of improving HIV/AIDS care for vulnerable and marginalized individuals by making changes in service delivery systems. Currently, the populations affected most by the HIV/AIDS epidemic include gay and bisexual men, injection drug users, women, African Americans and Latinos, and youth under the age of 25. These projects strive to improve the HIV care and services infrastructure for these and other populations.

The Infrastructure-Advocacy projects focus on various issues and target populations, yet share numerous goals that include: (1) advocating for increased availability and accessibility to HIV care, including psychosocial services; (2) identifying and addressing gaps in the infrastructure of local and national health care programs and services so that people with HIV may receive the highest levels of comprehensive, appropriate, sensitive, state-of-the-art services; (3) considering programmatic adjustments in light of dynamic local and national polices that were not present 3 years ago (e.g. welfare reform, names reporting, and mandatory neonatal HIV testing); (4) empowering people with HIV/AIDS through education, training, and involvement in decision-making processes; and, (5) based on their combined and individual findings, developing blueprints for other projects working to change local HIV/AIDS services infrastructures. The strategies employed by the projects to implement changes and improvements in service delivery systems for people living with HIV/AIDS are summarized in the box above.


Strategies Used to Implement Change

  1. Training, education and skill building of service providers and policy makers

  2. Provision of technical assistance and expert consultation

  3. Advocacy and leadership development for people with HIV to prepare them for increasing involvement in public advocacy

  4. Development of collaborations and team building among service providers, policy makers, and people living with HIV/AIDS

  5. Information dissemination

People living with HIV/AIDS need social and medical services that are integrated and interconnected to other aspects of their lives. Each project has developed a network of providers, related agencies, and people with HIV to integrate services, develop a comprehensive continuum of seamlessly linked services, and/or provide an organizational structure that will promote the development of such a seamless continuum. In addition, they track policies such as mandatory testing of pregnant women and newborns, welfare reform and Medicaid managed care, and cuts in funding for other vital services such as case management. Most of the projects work with a combination of individual providers as well as provider organizations to implement systems change. In addition, the Infrastructure-Advocacy Work Group realizes that people living with HIV/AIDS are the experts; thus they serve as informers, educators, consultants, and advocates.


Infrastructure-Advocacy Work Group Projects

  • Center for Women Policy Studies’ Metro DC Collaborative for Women with HIV/AIDS

  • Health Initiative for Youth’s AIDS/HIV Community Training Project (YouthACT)

  • Hektoen Institute for Medical Research/Cook County HIV Primary Care Center’s Illinois Maternal and Child Health HIV Integration Project

  • Indiana Community AIDS Action Network’s HIV Advocacy Program

  • Michigan Protection and Advocacy Service’s HIV/AIDS Advocacy Program

  • Missouri Department of Health’s Integrated Care for Individuals with HIV/AIDS, Mental Illness, and/or Substance Abuse Problems

  • SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn’s Brooklyn Service Model

  • University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio’s Family Unit Project for South Texas (Project SALUD)

Also see the full report by the Infrastructure-Advocacy Work Group, which highlights the ongoing need to work for basic human rights (i.e., social equality, economic parity, and justice) and access to care and services for people living with HIV/AIDS. Also available is a multimedia presentation of the "Infrastructure-Advocacy Work Group Qualitative Evaluation Report."

SPNS/Fax is produced by The Measurement Group–PROTOTYPES Evaluation and Dissemination Center (EDC). Editorial comments should be made to The Measurement Group at 5811A Uplander Way, Culver City, California 90230, 310.216.1051, 310.670.7735 (fax).
 

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