AFC Works to Link Prevention and Care Services

In light of growing nationwide recognition that efforts to reduce new infections must target both individuals at risk of infection as well as those living with the disease, AFC is taking a leadership role in developing new programs that link HIV-positive individuals with risk-reduction services.

With funding provided by the Chicago and Cook County Departments of Public Health, AFC spent the past year conducting surveys and focus groups with HIV-positive individuals and HIV/AIDS case managers to determine the feasibility of augmenting risk-reduction services for clients of AFC's case management cooperative. The cooperative encompasses 150 case managers working at 55 agencies across the metropolitan area to serve more than 6,000 individuals living with HIV/AIDS. AFC-commissioned researchers concluded that both case managers and their clients believe that prevention education is an important component of AIDS case management and that case managers should assess clients' individual prevention needs.

Case managers currently assess client needs for care services, provide linkages to care, and monitor clients' ongoing progress in seeking and receiving needed services. As a result of the recent feasibility studies, AFC has updated the 32-hour case manager orientation series to include a new prevention component. In addition, AFC added sessions to its regular case manager training series on learning how to counsel clients on risk reduction activities, providing linkages to prevention support services, and conducting sex and drug assessments.

In order to uniformly evaluate clients' risk, AFC and members of the Case Management Governance Committee developed a short sex and drug history assessment form. The form is being piloted with case managers in four community agencies – Children's Place, Community Supportive Living System, BEHIV, and Community Response – to determine its effectiveness. Depending on the results of the pilot, the assessment form may become a standard tool for AFC case managers, and would be implemented by the entire case management system in the spring of 2001.

AFC will also lend its expertise to a new three-year prevention pilot sponsored by the Chicago Department of Public Health. The pilot will pair HIV-positive people seeking prevention support with harm reduction staff at four community agencies. AFC will work with the community agencies to develop standard procedures for program implementation. This program differs from AFC's prevention initiative because the case managers in the three-year pilot will specialize in intensive prevention counseling whereas AFC case managers assess high-risk activity and then refer clients to other prevention resources, as needed.

The four community agencies – Haymarket Center, Michael Reese Hospital, CALOR, and Roseland Hospital – will target services to people of color. The Chicago HIV Prevention Planning Group and Chicago Area HIV Services Planning Council collaborated in making federal funds available to create the program.

Fact sheet (PDF)