National Minority AIDS Council Building Healthier Communities

** Special Notice**
Applications must be sent via fax to: (202) 483-1135

Recruitment and Retention into Care

The Recruitment and Retention into Care program is funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) HIV/AIDS Bureau. The project is conducted by the National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC) and managed by Melanie Graham, MSW, (202)483-6622, ext. 363.

 

Goal

The National Minority AIDS Council presents the Recruitment and Retention into Care Program. The program is a national training program designed to develop, improve, and expand comprehensive services targeting communities severely impacted by HIV/AIDS. 

 

The goal of the program is to improve access, quality of care, and coordination of health care services for people living with HIV/AIDS who are multiply diagnosed, located in or around rural areas, and/or racial ethnic minorities who are collectively categorized as hard to reach populations.

• Multiply Diagnosed Persons with HIV: People who are doubly or triply diagnosed (HIV/AIDS, alcohol and other drug addiction, mental health, and/or homelessness) make up a larger segment of persons with needs and are often the most difficult to recruit and retain in primary medical care.

• Rural Persons with HIV: As the epidemic continues to spread across the nation, there are significant challenges in bringing appropriate care to persons with HIV in rural areas of the U.S.

• Racial and Ethnic Minorities with HIV: HIV/AIDS continues to have a devastating impact on underserved racial/ethnic minority populations and subpopulations in the U.S.

Audience

In order for group participants to best adapt the training and technical assistance to address recruitment and retention into care, your organization MUST meet the following criteria;

• receive Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program funding

• serve racial ethnic minorities and multiply diagnosed clients

• target services to individuals within or around rural areas

 

Organizations located within the Public Health Service Region in which the training is hosted are strongly encouraged to apply. Go to http://www.hhs.gov/about/regionmap.html to determine which public health region you are located. NMAC will allow two people per organization to apply; the training is targeting a decision maker and a staff person who works directly with clients.

Dates and Locations

The dates and locations of the Recruitment and Retention trainings:

• Memphis, Tennessee: July 29^th 2009 – July 31^st, 2009

• Los Angeles, California: August 19^th 2009 – August 21^st 2009

 

Cost

NMAC will pay for travel, lodging, and incidentals, for a maximum of 15 participants. All participants must submit a Recruitment and Retention Into Care Training Participant Application and receive advanced approval from NMAC in order to attend the training.

Click here to download the application.

 

Curriculum

Over the course of two and a half days, the training will cover strategies on recruiting and retaining high-risk clients, social marketing and community partnerships. 

 

Training Topics

The National Minority AIDS Council will provide curricula-driven trainings on best practices for recruiting and retaining hard-to-reach clients into HIV care, focusing on: multiply-diagnosed individuals (HIV/AIDS, alcohol and other drug addictions, mental health challenges, homelessness), persons living in rural areas, and underserved racial/ethnic minority populations.  The trainings will offer opportunities to:

• conduct a community needs assessment and community mapping in which participants will bring community plans and/or previously completed assessments to identify services in targeted communities

• promote collaboration within community-based organizations (CBO’s) and clinics and organizations to get buy-in internally to recruit and retain underserved populations

• present recruitment and retention strategies such as motivational interviewing and social marketing for target populations

• discuss program evaluation starting with identifying goals and objectives, utilizing community mapping and assessment for program implementation and development in the effort to recruit and retain clients

For more information about the program, please contact Melanie Graham, MSW or Kelvin Mulembe at (202) 483-NMAC (6622), ext. 363 and 313, respectively. You may also contact staff via email at mgraham@nmac.org  and kmulembe@nmac.org.