|
CAI News June - September 2008 Vol. 1, No. 3 |
Announcing the New CAI Title X Regional Training and Technical Assistance Project
The Center for Capacity Development, CAI/Atlanta, in conjunction with the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (SCHSR) and the Migrant Clinicians Network (MCN), is the new Title X Family Planning Regional Training Center (RTC) for Federal Region IV.
The Region IV Training and Technical Assistance Project (RTTAP) will provide comprehensive training and specialized technical assistance to the ten Title X grantees and their 254 delegates (mostly county health departments) and 1,130 clinics in Region IV, which is composed of Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee. On an annual basis the delegates and clinics serve more than one million family planning users, nearly 22 percent of all family planning clients seen nationally.
The RTTAP will use a combination of face-to-face and innovative distance learning strategies (webinars, e-learning programs, and facilitated conference calls) to provide high quality, skills building training and technical assistance to roughly 2,400 family planning staff annually in order to strengthen and support the delivery of high quality family planning services.
In addition to this new award, CAI will also continue serving as the Title X Family Planning Regional Training Center and Infertility Prevention Project Infrastructure for Federal Region II, which is composed of New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
In August a team from CAI went to Mexico City to join roughly 25,000 other participants and 3,000 journalists at the International AIDS Society (IAS) XVII International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2008). At the conference the CAI team of capacity building experts presented six posters that were chosen out of a reported 10,500 submitted abstracts. The posters highlighted CAI projects, including two done in conjunction with the Guyana HIV/AIDS Reduction and Prevention (GHARP) Project.
Poster topics included:
A seventh abstract entitled, “Global Models for Integrating Monitoring and Evaluation into Community-Level Programs,” was accepted for inclusion in the IAC Proceedings CD-Rom. Please visit www.cicatelli.org for a link to CAI’s poster presentations and go to www.aids2008.org to learn more about the IAC.
The Professional Development Program (PDP) recently awarded a grant to CAI to serve as the Regional Technical Assistance and Training Center (RTATC) for Manhattan and Brooklyn. The grant, which is funded by the New York State Department of Health (DOH) and the Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS), will allow CAI to deliver training and technical assistance (TA) to OASAS funded and licensed addiction providers who are integrating tobacco dependence treatment into their services and organizational practices, at no cost to the agencies or participants.
Five different training programs will be offered to treatment staff, as will individual and group TA. A large group of registrants have already begun the first trainings, which include “The Foundation: Integrating Tobacco Use Interventions into NYS Chemical Dependence Services” and “Assessment, Diagnosis and Pharmacotherapy for Tobacco Dependence.”
For more information, please contact Ida Colon at ida@cicatelli.org, or Caroline Waterman at cwaterman@cicatelli.org.
CAI Receives Funding to Provide Consumer Development and Training
CAI was recently awarded a HRSA AIDS Bureau (HAB) National Training and Technical Assistance Cooperative Agreement on Consumer Development. This project, entitled the Consumer-Provider Partnership for Care Project (CPPC Project), seeks to demonstrate the effective involvement of consumers in enhancing services and supporting the work of Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Part D care providers. The project will be modeled after CAI's very successful project, Integrating Peer Advocates as Essential Members of Multidisciplinary Health Care Teams, which was developed under a HRSA National Training and TA Cooperative Agreement that concluded in August 2008.
The CPPC Project will be targeted to HIV-infected women, young adults and the clinical care staff of Part D service providers that work with them. Major activities will include convening two national Consumer Advisory Panels (one for HIV-infected women and one for HIV-infected youth); conducting a national needs assessment with Part D grantees and their constituents; developing and delivering national training programs; providing technical assistance to help with implementation; and comprehensive evaluation and development of a Promising Practices Report.
CAI to Conduct Nationwide Assessment of Readiness of HRSA Part D Providers to Collect Client-level Data
CAI was recently awarded a second HRSA AIDS Bureau (HAB) National Training and Technical Assistance Cooperative Agreement to conduct a nationwide assessment of the ability of Part D funded programs to collect client-level data. The major goal of this three-year project will be to assess capacity of all Part D Providers and their capacity to successfully collect and report on a core set of client socio-demographic and service utilization data that can be used to better plan, monitor and evaluate HIV-related services provided to women, children and families.
In August, the People With AIDS and HIV Leadership Training Institute (PWA LTI) conducted its first training designed specifically for young adults. Nineteen HIV positive young people between the ages of 17 and 25 attended the three-day workshop, which focused on the PWA self-empowerment movement, health care self-management skills, and stigma and disclosure issues. The session was the first in a series of three planned programs; upcoming trainings in the fall and winter will address skills in public speaking and advocating with policy makers.
For more information on the PWA LTI, including a short promotional video, please visit www.cicatelli.org/LTI. Workshop descriptions, eligibility criteria, a training calendar and back issues of the LTI's newsletter, The Circle, are also available on the site.
Metro TeenAIDS contracted CAI to develop and provide a training program on conducting a brief HIV intervention to 60 public school nurses from the DC middle and high school system. The training taught motivational interviewing as an effective approach to conducting a brief intervention for HIV risk prevention, intervention and referrals, and demonstrated ways for nurses to bring up and discuss HIV with students during visits that are typically unrelated and last as little as ten minutes.
The training included a description and model of the brief HIV intervention; a discussion on adolescent development and how it impacts risk factors and HIV prevention; how to approach the discussion regarding HIV with adolescents; and how to conduct a risk assessment and create a safe space. CAI will be conducting follow-up conference calls with the nurses to provide assistance as they implement the HIV brief intervention.
CAI also conducted a Training-of-Trainers program for Metro TeenAIDS staff that included two training curricula developed by CAI: one on the brief HIV intervention and another is a follow-up training providing more in-depth strategies on using motivational interviewing for HIV risks prevention, intervention and referral.
15th Annual North Atlantic Training Institute for Sexual Health Educators (NATISHE)
The 15th annual North Atlantic Training Institute for Sexual Health Educators (NATISHE) took place the week of July 28th in Rensselaerville, NY. This year’s NATISHE took the theme of “The Art of Health Education: A Process in Three Acts,” and provided participants with the opportunity for intensive skills building on the competencies necessary to deliver effective health education programs. A total of 49 participants attended from throughout New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts.
The five-day conference included plenary presentations on the role of the public health professional, and skills building for the design, delivery and processing of effective educational presentations; workshops were on developing a lesson plan/design, ice-breakers and energizers, and making every lesson inclusive.
All workshops and plenaries were designed and delivered by the NATISHE Core Staff, a distinguished group of leaders in the fields of family planning health education and school-based health. The 2008 NATISHE created an excellent networking and skills building environment to help foster the growth of family planning health educators.
Redesign of Health Care Delivery Systems to Improve Patient Outcomes in Puerto Rico Department of Health HIV/STD Clinics
CAI has been providing technical assistance to a physician-led multidisciplinary team from the Puerto Rico Department of Health (PRDOH) to help them build the necessary knowledge and skills to evaluate, plan and lead efforts for improving their current HIV clinic delivery systems and vital health care services for those affected by HIV and STDs.
Throughout the consulting activities CAI employed an active learning process built on the foundation of the Institute for Health Care Improvement’s Model for Change and utilized the Center’s for Disease Control and Prevention’s Patient Flow Analysis as a primary improvement strategy. Drawing on these tools CAI has provided a Training-of-Trainers (TOT) program to a multidisciplinary team of senior level PRDOH and PR AETC staff who comprise the “PRDOH Leadership Team.”
This team is charged with assessing and evaluating program operations and then developing a plan of action at a Leadership Summit being held in San Juan, Puerto Rico in December 2008. At the Summit, the team will make specific improvements in patient access to care, adherence to treatment plans, patient follow-up and increased patient and staff satisfaction with quality of care provided.
This effort is being made possible through an innovative partnership between CAI and the Region II Regional Health Administrator’s Office, CDC HIV Prevention Branch and the US Mexico Border Health Association.
El Salvador
In July, CAI conducted the final training of a year-long civil society strengthening project titled, Institutional Strengthening for NGOs that Support Vulnerable Populations in El Salvador. The goal of the project was to increase the capacity of NGOs to organize, plan, administer, supervise the implementation of, and monitor and evaluate programs.
As part of the training, participating NGOs have developed strategic plans or proposals for submission to funding organizations. The final training in July focused on reviewing the proposals that the NGOs developed with CAI’s technical assistance; CAI also provided additional training and monitoring and evaluation (M&E), including defining levels of M&E, including stakeholders in the evaluation process, writing SMART objectives, developing evaluation questions, selecting indicators, and understanding the importance of data flow.
In partnership with the Academy for Educational Development (AED), CAI has begun work to implement a Home Based Care (HBC) program in the Dominican Republic (DR). For the project, which is funded by USAID under TASC III, CAI will be working with the Ministry of Health and local NGOs to establish and develop a key group of trained HBC workers that will be supervised by licensed nurses and deliver high quality palliative care to PLWHA in Region V and the Border Regions. CAI has provided technical assistance to bridge grantees during the past three months, and is currently reviewing NGO proposals for two-year standard grants to provide home-based and palliative care services. Funding for standard grantees will begin in October 2008.
CAI signed an inter-institutional agreement with the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo) in the Dominican Republic to support and develop human resources to address Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), HIV/AIDS, and other health issues. The signing is an unprecedented move for the University, which has never before partnered with an organization outside of the Dominican Republic.
Both parties agreed to provide technical assistance to national programs working in health issues – especially HIV/AIDS – to develop capacity in the design and implementation of programs to develop human resources through continuing education. The agreement will also promote certification initiatives through technical courses targeted toward community-based health personnel, health promoters, home-based health visitors and counselors, as well as training for professionals in the health sciences. The agreement also lays out the opportunity for academic and institutional exchanges to be directed toward students of Health Sciences at the University. For press coverage of this event, go to: www.diariodominicano.com/n.php?id=31183.
http://www.cicatelli.org
© 2008,
Cicatelli Associates Incorporated, 505 Eighth Avenue,
Suite 1600, New York, NY 10018
phone:
(212) 594-7741 / fax: (212) 629-3321
