• The New RSR: Be Prepared
• Presentation Slides Online: 2008 Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Grantee Meeting
• 2008 Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Progress Report Now Available Online
• December 1 is World AIDS Day: Take These Steps with AIDS.gov
• Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Grantees Receive National Nurse Awards
• Training Tips Featured in New Issue of AETC Network News
• New Issue of HIV Meds Quarterly: Learn the Latest on Common Therapies
• New Face of Ryan White on TARGET Center: AETC’s Brian Wilcox
• TARGET Center TA Website of the Month: Treating Adolescents with HIV

• CDC Releases New Recommendations on Partner Services
• North American Housing and HIV/AIDS Research Summit: Call for Abstracts, Deadline January 15
• 2008 Global Conference on Methamphetamine: Presentations Available Online

HRSA/HAB NEWS  

The New RSR: Be Prepared
Are you ready for the new Ryan White Services Report (RSR), which features client-level data reporting?  Beginning January 1, 2009, all Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program grantees and service providers will use this new data collection and reporting system to report to HRSA/HAB on programs and clients being served.  Technical assistance webcasts are scheduled as follows:  

Are You Ready for the RSR?
December 12 and December 15, 2008, 2:00 – 3:30 (ET)
A brief history of how HRSA/HAB conducted a multi-year process to develop the final client-level data system.  To register.

Complete Readiness Assessment Now
Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program grantees and service providers are asked to complete a brief online assessment in order to determine the readiness of their data collection system for reporting client-level data in the required format.  The results will help determine the technical assistance necessary during this transition.  It is important that everyone complete the assessment even if you feel your organization is prepared.  It only takes 2-3 minutes to complete.   The deadline to complete the assessment is today, November 20.  

Complete the assessment.

Learn more about the RSR on the HRSA/HAB RSR webpage.

2008 Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Grantee Meeting: Presentation Slides Online
The slide sets from over 330 presentations by Ryan White community members at the 2008 Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Grantee Meeting, held August 25-28, are now available on the TARGET Center website.  The workshops reflect the seven meeting tracks: 1) access to care; 2) administration/fiscal; 3) coordination and linkages; 4) cultural competency; 5) prevention/care continuum; 6) program development; and 7) quality, evaluation, and data.  Webcasts of all sessions of the Clinical Update are also available online.  Both are available.

2008 Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Progress Report Now Available Online
The report, “2008 Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Progress Report: The Power of Connections” highlights how the program serves many of the poorest people with HIV/AIDS in America.  According to the report, people living with HIV/AIDS are poorer than the general population, and Ryan White Program clients are poorer still.  Seventy-two (72) percent of Ryan White Program clients have household incomes equal to or below the federal poverty level and only 11 percent have any private health insurance.  The report shows that Ryan White Program programs are following the demographics of the disease:  

• Of the 72 percent of Ryan White Program clients from minority communities, 49 percent are African American and 21 percent are Hispanic;
  
• A third (33 percent) of all Ryan White Program clients are women; and
• Two percent are over the age of 65 and six percent are under age 25.

Two percent are over the age of 65 and six percent are under age 25.  

Findings in the report summarize program data from 2006.  View the report.

December 1 is World AIDS Day: Take These Steps with AIDS.gov
Over the past year, AIDS.gov has been promoting the effective use of new media by AIDS service providers.  World AIDS Day provides another opportunity to use new media to get our message out.  On the 20th observance of World AIDS Day, join AIDS.gov in any or all of these activities that draw on the use of new media to reach new audiences.  

Facing AIDS Campaign
In four easy steps, you can help reduce the stigma around HIV/AIDS.

1. Take a picture of yourself wearing a red ribbon.  Any red ribbon.  Be creative!
2. Add the photo to your social network profiles, Twitter, blog, and/or your website in time for World AIDS Day on December 1.  Leave it up for at least one week.
3. Add your picture to the World AIDS Day 08 Flickr group.
4. Encourage your friends to do the same.  
   

Participate in a Blogging “Call to Action” on December 1
AIDS.gov and the National Institute on Drug Abuse are partnering with Blog Catalog to host “Bloggers Unite on World AIDS Day.”  We invite bloggers to write about HIV/AIDS on December 1. If you are not a blogger, ask your favorite blogger to join the event.  For more information .

Promote HIV Testing
To find an HIV testing site in your area, send a text message with your ZIP code to "KNOWIT" (566948) or visit.

Attend the World AIDS Day Event in Second Life on December 1
The event will feature HIV/AIDS presentations and displays, tours, writing workshops, and virtual red ribbons and t-shirts.  To learn more.
 
Looking for other ways to get involved for World AIDS Day?  Check out other World AIDS Day activities (including a Bloggers Unite event)

Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Grantees Receive National Nurse Awards
The administrators from three Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program grantees received awards from the Association for Nurses in AIDS Care (ANAC) at their November 2008 national conference.  The awards acknowledge years of contributions to HIV/AIDS nursing, which include training and technical assistance efforts for Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program-funded agencies.  AETC Director Lucy Bradley-Springer (Mountain Plains AETC) received the 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award.  She is from Colorado.  Linda Frank (Pennsylvania/MidAtlantic AETC) received the 2008 Frank Lamendola Achievement Award for Nursing Leadership in HIV Care.  In addition, Carolyn Burr of the University of New Jersey’s François-Xavier Bagnoud Center received the ANAC Excellence in HIV Prevention Award.  Carolyn has been involved in a wide range of pediatric, perinatal, testing, and other programs.

Learn more about the work of AETC programs at the AETC National Resource Center.

Training Tips Featured in New Issue of AETC Network News
The fall issue of the “AETC Network News” is now available.  This issue features: the Pacific AETC’s trainer Kirsten Balano, PharmD, who shares training tips on incorporating adult learning principles and case-based learning; development of the Delta Region's web-based data management system; and capacity building, technical assistance, and training efforts of the Pennsylvania/Mid-Atlantic AETC.
 
New Issue of HIV Meds Quarterly: Learn the Latest on Common Therapies
The fall issue of “HIV Meds Quarterly,” which provides brief updates and analysis of new findings related to common therapies used by HIV clinicians, is now available.  This publication is produced by the AETC National Resource Center and UCSF Center for HIV Information.

New Face of Ryan White on TARGET Center: AETC’s Brian Wilcox
At the Grantee Meeting in August, HRSA/HAB presented awards to individuals for their exceptional achievements in providing health care services to medically underserved Americans living with HIV/AIDS.  Now featured on the TARGET Center homepage is Ronald Wilcox, MD, an HIV clinician and AETC director with the Delta Region AETC in New Orleans.  He received the 2008 AETC Award for his role in rebuilding the Delta AETC and reestablishing it as the premiere provider of quality HIV training in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas after Hurricane Katrina.   See the photo story on the TARGET Center.
 
Read about all of the outstanding HIV/AIDS providers honored at this year’s conference in a HRSA press release at:
http://newsroom.hrsa.gov/releases/2008/rwawardsaugust.htm  

Interested in getting your program featured as a Face of Ryan White?  Submit a photo and a brief summary of a resource (e.g. protocol, program innovation) from which other Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program grantees could benefit.  Submit to:
http://careacttarget.org/uploads/uploadform.asp  

TARGET Center TA Website of the Month: Treating Adolescents with HIV
“Treating Adolescents with HIV: Tools for Building Skills in Cultural Competence, Clinical Care, and Support,” is a series of online training modules for health care providers working with HIV-infected youth.  In the United States, HIV disproportionately affects ethnic and sexual minority youth. These young people are also at risk of dropping out of care, non-adherence to treatment regimens, and co-morbidities such as substance abuse and mental health problems.  

The series begins, and is framed, by an introductory module covering best practices in adolescent care and the impact of the AIDS epidemic on minority youth.  The four additional modules in this series include: psychosocial issues; antiretroviral treatment and adherence; transitioning care; and prevention with positives  The expert authors and editors come from diverse clinical settings around the country and present course information from the perspective of a culturally aware care provider.  

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of HIV/AIDS Policy, Health Resources and Services Administration, HIV/AIDS Bureau supported the development of this training which was produced in collaboration with a diverse group of adolescent HIV specialists, trainers, evaluators, and technologists, including the AETC National Resource Center and the Adolescent AIDS Program.  Continuing education review and accreditation for physicians, nurses, psychologists, social workers, and other care providers was coordinated through the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), UMDNJ-Center for Continuing and Outreach Education.  

Check out the training.

OTHER NEWS  

CDC Releases New Recommendations on Partner Services
The November 7, 2008 issue of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report includes new “Recommendations for Partner Services Programs for HIV Infection, Syphilis, Gonorrhea, and Chlamydial Infection.”  Primarily directed to health department managers responsible for overseeing state and local HIV, STD, or integrated HIV/STD programs, the recommendations are designed to guide the delivery of partner services to individuals newly diagnosed with early syphilis, HIV/AIDS, chlamydia or gonorrhea.  The new recommendations are the product of a collaborative process that involved Federal, state, and local agencies; national and local organizations; state STD and HIV prevention program and surveillance staff; and subject matter experts in relevant areas such as law and ethics.  The new recommendations replace two separate CDC documents that until now have guided the provision of partner services for HIV and for other STDs: the 1998 “HIV Partner Counseling and Referral Services Guidance” and the Partner Services module of the 2001 “Program Operations Guidelines for STD Prevention.”  

To view the recommendations.

CDC has launched at new webpage with resources on partner services:

North American Housing and HIV/AIDS Research Summit: Call for Abstracts, Deadline January 15
The US National AIDS Housing Coalition (NAHC), working in collaboration with the Ontario HIV Treatment Network (OHTN) and the Department of Health, Behavior, and Society of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, will hold the fourth Housing and HIV/AIDS Research Summit June 3-5, 2009 in Washington, DC.  The theme of 2009 Summit is “Examining the Evidence: The Impact of Housing on HIV Prevention and Care.”  

The conveners invite abstracts presenting the results of scientific research, program evaluation, community-based interventions, and public policy strategies that reflect this theme.  Both research and policy abstracts are encouraged. 

Abstracts may be submitted for oral or poster presentations.   Abstracts are due January 15, 2009 and notification of acceptance will be no later than March 6.  Conference fees will be waived for presenting authors.   For more information on the conference and submitting abstracts.
 
2008 Global Conference on Methamphetamine: Presentations Available Online
A selection of presentations from the 2008 Global Conference on Methamphetamine, which took place in Prague, Czech Republic in September are now available.  Several of the presentations address the relationship between methamphetamine and HIV.  To view the slide presentations.
 
TARGET Center, Central Source for Ryan White TA

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