Mental Health HIV Services Collaborative (MHHSC) Program

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
Center for Mental Health Services
Office of the Associate Director for Medical Affairs

The Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) leads Federal efforts to treat mental illness by promoting mental health and, when possible, to provide services to prevent mental illness. CMHS HIV/AIDS programs target prevention, education, and delivery of quality mental health treatment services to people living with HIV/AIDS.

In FY 2001 CMHS initiated a cooperative agreement grant program designed to address unmet mental health treatment needs of individuals living with HIV/AIDS who also have a diagnosed mental health disorder. The Mental Health HIV Services Collaborative (MHHSC) Program consists of 20 community-based organizations serving African American, Hispanic/Latino, and other racial/ethnic minorities. Each grantee received a five-year award to expand their current service capacity to reach and provide coordinated mental health and other support services to members of these groups experiencing HIV/AIDS, and to evaluate the effectiveness of the constellation of services they employ in this effort.

The MHHSC Program focuses on enabling and supporting sites to provide effective culturally competent mental health services to HIV positive individuals in traditionally under-served communities. In addition, these programs provide mental health case management and “active” referral to, and “tracking” of, other health and support services

A coordinating center provides technical assistance in the development and/or enhancement of culturally competent and individualized mental health treatment of HIV-positive individuals. It supports and conducts the collection and analysis of process and descriptive information/data common to all sites. The coordinating center also provides both individual and multi-site technical assistance in the implementation of the programs including assistance with issues of recruitment, retention, evaluation, and outcome assessment. In addition, at the request of the local sites, the coordinating center provides technical assistance in the development of voluntary cross-site measures. The underlying philosophy of this voluntary cross-site evaluation, and the site-specific evaluation technical assistance, is that evaluation activities must be designed to meet the needs of the clinical and non-clinical program staff to enable them to better serve their clients.

CMHS anticipates HIV/AIDS-related mental health treatment program outcomes to include: increased capacity to provide mental health treatment services and HIV/AIDS-related mental health treatment to individuals living with HIV/AIDS in traditional and non-traditional settings in communities of color; identification of culturally appropriate/competent mental health models; and improved client outcomes as measured by the MHHSC Program’s assessment strategy.

Fiscal Year 2004 funding: $9.5 million

Contact Information:

Barbara J. Silver, Ph.D.
MHHSC Program Director
CMHS/Office of the Associate Director for Medical Affairs
Parklawn Bldg. / Rm. 15-81
5600 Fishers Lane
Rockville, MD 20857

Tel: 240-276-1370
Fax: 240-276-1380
bsilver@samhsa.gov

KEN02-0132
11/18/04