PROJECT IN-CARE Chicago’s Positive Charge Project Roman Buenrostro, AIDS Foundation of Chicago

1. PROJECT IN-CARE Chicago’s Positive Charge Project Roman Buenrostro, AIDS Foundation of Chicago Sunday July 22, 2012

2. AGENDA • The need we responded to • What the project looked like in Year 1? • Changes made to the project in Year 2? • What have we learned so far?

3. THE NEED Of the new cases of HIV infection between 2006-2008: • 51% are Non-Hispanic African American while comprising 18% of the EMA population • 16% are Hispanic matching roughly their estimated EMA population size • 64% are MSM identified

4. UNMET NEED ESTIMATES Total local estimate is 52% of all PLWHIVA are not in care • 52% of MSM diagnosed are out of care • 40% of MSM/IDU are out of care • 50% of NH/African American are out of care • 49% of Hispanic are out of care How do we (AFC and our partners) address these statistics?

5. Project IN-CARE: Components RED = New modalities incorporated into our current system.

6. Project IN-CARE: Our Goals • Identify and monitor men of color living with HIV/AIDS who are at greater risk for treatment non-adherence. • Identify the specific barriers that prevent men of color from accessing and remaining adherent to HIV care. • Better understand the needs of project IN-CARE clients. • Help providers across the city develop better targeted linkage-to-care and retention interventions.

7. Components By Site- First Year AIDS Foundation of Chicago • Lead agency • Develop the Access/Retention-to-Care Screening Tool for pilot testing • Develop the peer health navigation protocol and training collaboratively • Coordinate project-wide data collection and management activities • Develop service tracking logs and convene regular meetings with each site

8. Brothers Health Collective • Identify and enroll clients through their existing prevention outreach and testing activities Howard Brown Health Center • Administer retention screening tool • Enroll newly diagnosed clients at STD/HIV clinics and/or initial client visits to primary care clinics

9. CORE Center • Administer retention screening tool • Enroll newly diagnosed clients at STD/HIV clinics and/or initial client visits to primary care clinics TPAN • Administer retention screening tool • Identify and enroll clients through their existing prevention outreach and testing activities • Treatment Education Advocacy Mobilization (TEAM) group will be adapted and utilized for IN-CARE clients

10. Year 2 CHANGES • In an effort to serve more participants, we expanded our we expanded our eligibility criteria to include non-men of color MSM • Removed the group level education component as a requirement for IN-CARE participants • Consolidated the Peer Health Navigation to three sites due to an underperforming partner

11. Lessons Learned • Planned outreach strategies (e.g. internet outreach through social networking sites) not successful especially for “out of care” individuals • Multiple access/retention to care intervention initiatives launched concurrently -important to participate in service provider planning meetings , and ongoing meetings

13. Lessons Learned Elements needed for Peer Health Navigation services to be successful: • Organizational structure and processes significantly impact service delivery • Buy-in is key from: • Organization • Administration • Staff

14. Lessons Learned • Peer services were meant to be a bridge into standard care, but it is proven challenging to focus on care with poverty, substance use, incarceration, and housing instability • Our local project included several questions that were trauma-related and found that 78% of our clients reported having been exposed to a crime-related event, 42% have been victims of physical violence, and 40% have been victims of sexual abuse.

15. Contact information: Roman Buenrostro Director of Special Projects AIDS Foundation of Chicago 200 West Jackson, Suite 2200 Chicago, IL 60606 312-334-0960 (phone) 312-922-2916 (fax) rbuenrostro@aidschicago.org