Botwinick G, Mason-Reese C; National Conference on Women & HIV.
Natl Conf Women HIV Natl Conf Women HIV Innov Care Policy Prev 1997 Los Angel Calif. 1997 May 4-7; 136 (abstract no. 216.6).
Blatner Associates, Inc., Maplewood, NJ.
Issues: In N.J., AIDS is a family epidemic fueled by injecting drug use and heterosexual transmission. Thousands of children are being orphaned; numbers of infected women of childbearing age continue to grow; and orphaned adolescents are a particularly high risk group. In local Needs Assessments conducted in NJ, over the past 3 years, up to 50% of responding, infected women (approx. 500 in 6 Counties) are parents of minor children. Family interventions and permanency planning are critical for this population. Project Description: Kinship Connection (KC) is a County-wide program sponsored by Elizabeth General Medical Center in New Jersey. Funded 4 years ago, it is one of 11 Federal Mental Health/HIV Demonstration Projects. KC is designed to serve parents with end-stage AIDS who have custody of their minor children, the children/adolescents themselves, and caregivers who are identified to care for them after their parents' death. KC is an integrated service system serving 40 families, with an interdisciplinary, multi-cultural approach, combining mental health, case management, permanency planning, and related support services. The model is largely in-home, and is based on family systems theory, focusing on the infected parent's immediate family/support system, as well as the "reconfigured" caregiver's family. Kinship's primary goals are to ease the very difficult transitions faced by both families and to achieve stabilization for the child. Project Results: Targeted outcomes include a viable permanency plan and improvements in individual mental health (reduction in depression, anxiety, etc.) and improvements in family, parent, and youth functioning, social supports, and coping skills. A secondary goal is to impact the larger mental health, substance abuse, HIV, and human service delivery systems -- to increase their knowledge of and responsiveness to families with HIV, through an Advisory Board, case conferences, training/forums. Findings/Implications: To date, the Project has served 150 parents, children, and caregivers. Their sociodemographic, mental health, and substance abuse characteristics/histories will be reviewed. Baseline and follow-up scores on outcome measures such as: depression, anxiety, coping skills, social supports, etc, will inform a discussion of engagement, treatment, and retention strategies which work. The difficulties/successes in conducting evaluations (i.e. parental reluctance to involve children, issues of parental disclosure in identifying a caregiver, etc.) will also be discussed.
Publication Types:
Keywords:
- Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
- Adolescent
- Caregivers
- Case Management
- Child
- Child Welfare
- Child of Impaired Parents
- Evaluation Studies
- Family
- Female
- Foster Home Care
- HIV Infections
- Health Planning
- Health Services
- Health Services Accessibility
- Humans
- Mental Disorders
- Mental Health Services
- Needs Assessment
- New Jersey
- Parents
- education
- organization & administration
Other ID:
UI: 102225929
From Meeting Abstracts