Course Description

Anti-Retroviral Treatment and Access to Medication (ARTAS) is an individual-level, multi-session, time-limited intervention with the goal of linking recently diagnosed persons with HIV to medical care soon after receiving their respective test result. ARTAS is based on the Strengths-based Case Management (SBCM) model, which is rooted in Social Cognitive Theory) particularly self-efficacy) and Humanistic Psychology. SBCM is a model that encourages the client to identify and use personal strengths; create goals for himself/herself; and establish an effective, working relationship with the Linkage Coordinator (LC).

Course Objectives

• • Summarize the ARTAS strategy

• • Summarize the key components of the client session

• • Demonstrate skills necessary to complete the client session

• • Conduct a strengths assessment

• • Prepare a client for transition, regardless if linked to care or not

• • Debrief after a medical appointment

Target Audience

This training is intended for individuals who will be responsible for conducting the ARTAS sessions with clients, (i.e., Linkage Coordinator). Linkage Coordinators should have experience providing case management or social services. Ideally, participants should include experienced case managers, social workers, and/or HIV test counselors.

La Terapia Antirretroviral y el Acceso a los Servicios (ARTAS, por sus siglas en inglés) es una intervención a nivel individual prov eída por personal en el rol de Coordinador de Enlace, utilizando una metodología de múltiples sesiones en un tiempo determinado. La meta de la intervención es enlazar a personas recientemente diagnosticadas con el VIH a cuidados médicos luego de recibir el resultado de la prueba. ARTAS se basa en el modelo de manejo de casos basado en fortalezas. Este lleva a los clientes a crear sus propias metas, y luego les ayuda a identificar y utilizar las fortalezas personales para lograr esas metas. Los clientes trabajan de cerca con el Coordinador de Enlace para asegurar el enlace a servicios médicos y facilita mejores resultados de salud.

Objetivos del curso

Al final del curso, los participantes podrán:

• • Resumir la estrategia de ARTAS.

• • Resumir los componentes principales de las sesiones del cliente.

• • Demostrar las destrezas necesarias para completar la sesión del cliente.

• • Hacer una evaluación de fortalezas.

• • Crear un Plan de Sesión para el cliente usando objetivos SMART (por sus siglas en ingles)

• • Preparar a un cliente para la transición, independientemente de si está enlazado o no al cuidado médico.

• • Hacer un resumen después de una cita médica.

Audiencia

Este curso está dirigido a las personas que serán responsables de ofrecer la intervención ARTAS a los clientes (es decir, el Coordinador de Enlace). Los Coordinadores de Enlace deben tener experiencia en el manejo de casos o servicios sociales. Lo ideal sería que los participantes fueran manejadores de casos, trabajadores sociales y/o proveedores de pruebas de VIH con experiencia.

Course Description

Motivational interviewing is an incredibly versatile skill set which can be used to assist clients throughout their challenges with behavioral change. This synchronous virtual course on Motivational Interviewing (MI) will introduce learners to the foundational content and skills of MI. During this multisession course we’ll describe Motivational Interviewing, explore its effectiveness, and review all the elements and skills necessary to utilize MI. This course will be divided into four 90-minute sessions, presented over two days, that will provide learners with the opportunity to practice the fundamental skills necessary for applying MI in their client interactions.

This ZOOM based - live course will utilize a variety of adult learning methodologies inclusive of lectures, group discussions, video forum and role plays.

Course Objectives

At the end of this course participants will be able to:

• Discuss how MI helps support your clients
• Describe at least two ways that MI’s effectiveness has been applied in HIV Prevention and care
• List the four elements of MI
• Demonstrate the ability to apply the four elements of MI

Training Audience

The Fundamentals of Motivational Interviewing for HIV course is designed to provide foundational information and tools for providers new to MI who wish to develop their understanding of Motivational Interviewing to improve their client provider relationships.

The recommended training audience includes staff from:

• Community-based organizations
• Health departments
• Health care organizations implementing HIV programs and services

Fundamentos de la Entrevista Motivacional para el VIH

Este curso está dirigido al personal que trabaja en prevención y de atención de la salud del VIH. A través de este curso los participantes aprenderán como apoyar a que sus clientes tomen mejores decisiones sobre su salud. El curso Fundamentos de la Entrevista Motivacional para el VIH está diseñado para que los participantes adquieran conocimientos básicos de como comprender y aplicar técnicas de la entrevista motivacional. Consecuentemente proporciona las herramientas para mejorar la relación entre el cliente y el proveedor.

Objetivos del curso

Al final del curso, los participantes podrán:

• Analizar cómo la Entrevista Motivacional ayuda a dar apoyo a sus clientes con el cambio de comportamiento
• Describir al menos dos formas en que se ha aplicado la eficacia de la Entrevista Motivacional en la prevención y la atención del VIH
• Enumerar los cuatro elementos de la Entrevista Motivacional
• Demostrar la capacidad de aplicar los cuatro elementos de la Entrevista Motivacional

Audiencia

El curso Fundamentos de la Entrevista Motivacional para el VIH está diseñado para proporcionar información básica y herramientas para los proveedores de servicios en VIH que son nuevos al tema de la entrevista motivacional.

La audiencia recomendada para esta capacitación incluye al personal de

• Organizaciones de bases comunitarias
• Departamentos de salud
• Organizaciones de atención medica que implementan programas y servicios para el VIH

Course Description

The HIV Navigation Services (HNS) course is designed to improve navigation skills for those delivering prevention services to people living with HIV and high-risk HIV-negative individuals. This comprehensive course package is for service providers who want to know more about navigation skills, how navigation fits in the overall field of HIV prevention, structural components of a navigation program, and professional conduct.

Course Objectives

By the end of this training, participants will be able to:

• Explain how navigation services support at-risk populations (persons living with HIV and high-risk negative people) obtain better health outcomes
• Name the component of the HIV navigation services protocol
• Describe how navigators work as part of a professional team to support a client through the HIV Care continuum
• Identify the required core competencies and knowledge of HNS
• Apply the skills and knowledge of HNS
• List key areas of need for professional development of navigators
• Identify next steps to enhance organizational capacity
• Describe how quality assurance components support clients, navigators and agencies

Target Audience 

The recommended training audience includes staff from:

• Community-based organizations
• Health Departments
• Health care organizations implementing HIV programs and services
• General navigation programs that seek to incorporate HIV navigation services as an additional component to their existing navigation services

Course Description

HIV Testing in Nonclinical Settings is CDC’s latest HIV testing training for nonclinical settings. This training reflects scientific advances and evidence informed updates as expressed in CDC’s guidance: Implementing HIV Testing in Nonclinical Settings: A Guide For HIV Testing Providers (2016). Key influences on this curriculum have been shifts in HIV prevention, care, and treatment that have occurred since the Fundamentals of HIV Prevention Counseling training, and the policies that followed. This training has a streamlined Six-Step Protocol with greater emphasis on serostatus specific referrals and active linkage. A person’s current circumstances are explored, with less extensive pre- and post-test counseling.

Course Objectives

• Utilize communication techniques to successfully build rapport with clients
• Understand the window period and communicate retesting messages
• Deliver the HIV rapid testing Six-Step Protocol to individuals in nonclinical settings
• Improve the ability to link clients who are living with, or at high risk for HIV, into care and prevention services

Target Audience

This training is intended for who plan to provide HIV testing in nonclinical settings or program managers who will be overseeing HIV test providers. Participants should have a basic understanding of HIV transmission and individual HIV testing.

Realización de pruebas de VIH en escenarios no clínicos

La Realización de pruebas del VIH en escenarios no clínicos adiestra al personal que trabajan fuera de los escenarios clínicos a realizar pruebas del VIH usando el “Protocolo de los Seis Pasos”. El curso enfatiza los referidos/enlaces que son específicos al estado serológico del cliente, lo que garantiza un enlace más exitoso. Adicionalmente adiestra al personal como explorar las circunstancias actuales de una persona, con menos énfasis en consejería tradicional extensa: antes y después de la prueba del VIH. Este curso refleja los avances científicos y las actualizaciones que son basadas en evidencia, como se describe en el documento del CDC: Implementación de pruebas del VIH en escenarios no clínicos: Una guía para proveedores de pruebas de VIH (2016) (disponible solamente en inglés).

Objetivos del curso

Al final del curso, los participantes podrán:

• Utilizar técnicas de comunicación para construir una relación de confianza con los clientes
• Definir el período ventana
• Enumerar por lo menos uno de los mensajes dirigidos a los clientes para que repitan la prueba del VIH
• Llevar a cabo el protocolo de los seis pasos para la toma de pruebas rápidas del VIH a personas en un escenario no clínico
• Mejorar la capacidad de enlazar a los clientes que viven con o están en riesgo de contraer el VIH con los servicios de cuidado y prevención

Audiencia

Esta capacitación está dirigida para proveedores que planean realizar pruebas del VIH en escenarios no clínicos o a los administradores de programas que supervisarán a los proveedores de pruebas del VIH. Los proveedores deben tener un conocimiento básico de la transmisión del VIH y de las pruebas individuales del VIH.

Course Description

CDC encourages HIV testing in pharmacies as a promising model to reach previously undiagnosed persons living with HIV. Through its partnership with Denver Prevention Training Center (PTC), CDC has developed a new curriculum to train pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, nurses, doctors, and pharmacy retail/clerical staff.

Course Objectives

• Describe the National HIV/AIDS Strategy.
• List populations disproportionately impacted by HIV.
• Summarize the importance of post- and pre-exposure prophylaxis as HIV prevention options.
• Describe CDC’s HIV testing recommendations for adults and adolescents.
• Apply the six steps of an HIV testing session.
• List steps to perform, read, and interpret rapid HIV test results.
• Describe implementation models and lessons learned from retail pharmacies providing rapid HIV testing.

Target Audience

This training is intended for pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, nurses, doctors, and pharmacy retail/clerical staff.

Course Description

Personalized Cognitive Counseling (PCC) is an intervention designed to reduce sexual risk behaviors among men who have sex with men (MSM) who are repeat testers for HIV. It encourages clients to identify thoughts & feelings during a recent episode of condomless anal intercourse (CAI) in order to reduce risk in future situations.

Course Objectives

• Explain the background, rationale, and story behind PCC, including its recent adaptation for episodic substance use.
• List the steps and core components of PCC and explain how each one is tied to intervention outcomes.
• Define terminology used in PCC, e.g., self-justification, online thinking, offline thinking.
• Learn how to determine a client’s eligibility for PCC.
• Help a client draw out a recent episode of condomless anal intercourse (CAI) and, using the Checklist of Thoughts, identify self-justifications used during this episode.
• Support clients in their plans for handling future situations and make appropriate referrals for PrEP and substance abuse treatment.
• Understand how to implement PCC in clinical settings including integrating alongside existing HIV testing protocols.

Target Audience

The primary intended audience for this course is individuals experienced in HIV counseling and testing from community-based organizations, HIV/AIDS service agencies, and health departments with existing HIV testing programs. Prerequisites for participation in the training include at least one year of experience conducting HIV-related testing and education.

Course Description

Community PROMISE is an effective, community-level HIV/STD prevention intervention that relies on role model stories and peer advocates from social networks (e.g. peers from clinic or community) to reduce HIV risk behaviors and increase engagement related to the HIV continuum of care. The intervention is based on behavioral theories including Stages of Change. PROMISE begins with a community identification process to collect and analyze information about the risk networks, sex and drug risk behaviors, indicators related to the HIV continuum of care, and identification of determinants of risk. This helps agencies identify and intervene with the intervention populations and appropriately tailor the intervention to specific network needs. Members of the intervention population who have made positive behavior change and/or engage in HIV care including adherence to medication are interviewed and role models stories are written based upon the interviews. The stories are personal accounts about how and why they took steps to reduce risk and engage in HIV care and being adherent to medication and the resulting positive effects on their lives. Peer advocates from the intervention population are recruited and trained to distribute the role model stories and prevention materials within their social networks. New role model stories are written based on continuous formative research that reflects behavior change within the target population.

Course Objectives

• Describe the four core elements of Community PROMISE.
• Apply the knowledge and skills to conduct a community identification (CID) process.
• Explain how to write a CID report.
• Use stages of change data from the intervention population interview to plan appropriate role model interviews and stories.
• Explain the origin, purpose, and components of role model stories.
• Conduct a role model story interview.
• Write a role model story.
• Describe the process for designing a role model story publication.
• Plan for the recruitment, training, and retention of peer advocates.
• Describe how to engage in the ongoing evaluation of Community PROMISE.
• Describe how PROMISE is High-Impact Prevention (HIP)-compliant.
• Demonstrate knowledge about implementing PROMISE with people living with HIV (PLWH) in a clinical setting, and implementing pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) with high-risk negatives (HRN).

Course Description

Sin Buscar Excusas/No Excuses is a singlesession, small-group, video-based behavioral intervention that aims to increase sexual safety and HIV testing and care among Hispanic/Latino gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM). Sexual safety includes having fewer partners, using condoms consistently, engaging in less risky sexual behaviors, using pre-exposure prophylaxis (PREP) or postexposure prophylaxis (PEP) as needed, and communicating with one’s partner about monogamy or HIV status. Sin Buscar Excusas/No Excuses can be implemented in various settings, including clinics and community agencies. Group sessions last approximately 60 minutes and include three core elements.

Course Objectives

• Describe the Sin Buscar Excusas/No Excuses intervention.
• Describe the definition of “Sexual Safety.”
• Describe the core elements of Sin Buscar Excusas/No Excuses.
• Describe the key characteristics of Sin Buscar Excusas/No Excuses.
• Describe the theory behind Sin Buscar Excusas/No Excuses.
• Define the HIP approach that is integrated into Sin Buscar Excusas/No Excuses.
• Describe the program’s effectiveness and benefits of using the program.

Target Audience

The Sin Buscar Excusas/No Excuses intervention targets Hispanic/Latino gay and bisexual men and other MSM who are 18 years and older.

Course Description

Sister to Sister is a brief (30-45 minute), one-on-one, skills-based HIV and sexually transmitted disease (STD) risk-reduction behavioral intervention that is delivered during the course of a routine medical visit by a female health care provider. The purpose of Sister to Sister is to:

• • provide intensive, culturally sensitive health information to empower and educate women

• • help women understand the various behaviors that put them at risk for HIV and other STDs

• • enhance women’s knowledge, beliefs, confidence and skills to help reduce their risk for STDs, especially HIV

The intervention is highly structured and implemented in a primary health care setting by nurses, health educators, or other professional clinic staff using a scripted teaching guide. It is educational, engaging, and gender-appropriate and uses videos, brainstorming, demonstrations, and skills-building activities. It is designed to be easily integrated into the health care provider’s standard clinical practice. As such, Sister to Sister is an effective tool for addressing the needs of both patients and providers in primary health care settings.

Course Objectives

• • Explain the theoretical framework of the curriculum and how it is applied to the intervention activities

• • Describe the science behind the curriculum

• • Describe the teaching methods used in the curriculum

• • Effectively model skills and confidence to teach the curriculum with fidelity in a caring and non-judgmental manner

• • Help women make proud and responsible decisions to respect and protect themselves because they feel they are worth it

Target Audience

Originally designed for African American women, Sister to Sister is for high-risk sexually active women 18-45 years old who have male partners and are attending primary health care clinics.

Course Description

Social Network Strategy (SNS) for HIV Testing Recruitment is an evidence supported approach to engaging and motivating a person to accept a service. SNS is particularly useful to recruit persons at risk for HIV into testing.

Course Objectives

• Describe the Social Network Strategy
• Describe the four phrases of the Social Network Strategy
• Draw a Social Network diagram
• Demonstrate the use of program data for program monitoring
• Describe the steps to develop a plan for integrating Social Network Strategy into an existing program

Target Audience

This 2-day training is designed for participants considering using Social Network Strategy for HIV Testing Recruitment at their agency or organization.

Estrategia de redes sociales para el reclutamiento a pruebas del VIH

La Estrategia de redes sociales para el reclutamiento a pruebas del VIH es una estrategia de salud pública. Esta estrategia está basada en el principio de que las personas dentro de una red social conocen, confían, y comparten las mismas vulnerabilidades y comportamientos de riesgo para el VIH. De esta manera, estas personas pueden ejercer mayor influencia entre ellos mismos. El curso Estrategias de redes sociales para el reclutamiento a pruebas del VIH, adiestra al personal en un enfoque basado en evidencia para involucrar y motivar a una persona vulnerable de contraer el VIH para aceptar un servicio como la prueba del VIH.

Objetivos del curso

Al final del curso, los participantes podrán:

• Describir la Estrategia de Redes Sociales
• Detallar las cuatro fases de la Estrategia de Redes Sociales
• Leer un Diagrama de Redes Sociales
• Desarrollar diagramas de Estrategia de Redes Sociales
• Explicar la importancia de la recopilación y el monitoreo de datos para la Estrategia de Redes Sociales

Audiencia

Esta capacitación de 2 días está diseñada para proveedores que estén considerando utilizar la estrategia de redes sociales para el reclutamiento a pruebas del VIH en su agencia u organización.

Course Description

The Stay Connected intervention is a comprehensive evidence-based behavioral intervention designed to increase retention in care for people with HIV (PWH). Retention in HIV medical care is defined as having two or more visits at least 3 months apart during a given year. This intervention requires all members of the healthcare team to deliver brief, positive, welcoming messages to all patients at the clinic. Clinical care staff (primary care providers and clinical support staff) deliver encouraging health messages to patients about the importance of staying in care. The intervention also designates a Retention Specialist to meet with patients experiencing barriers to keeping their appointments. The Retention Specialist focuses on establishing a relationship with patients through three (3) face-to-face sessions at the clinic and phone calls in between appointments and serving as a bridge between the patients and the healthcare providers. The intervention has designated an Administrator/Champion, Clinical Supervisor/Champion, and Intervention Coordinator to support the implementation of Stay Connected.

The Stay Connected intervention supports the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS), which is an ambitious plan to reduce new HIV infections, increase access to care, improve the lives of those with HIV, and reduce HIV-related health disparities. Stay Connected increases the likelihood that patients will engage in care and we know that once engaged in care, 93% of patients are prescribed antiretroviral therapy (ART). ART can help people with HIV live healthier, longer lives, and has been shown to reduce sexual transmission of HIV by 96%. Eighty-one percent of patients prescribed ART become virally suppressed, which helps patients live healthy, longer lives and greatly reduces their chances of passing HIV on to others.

Course Objectives

By the end of the training, Clinic Staff will be able to:

•  Identify the goals of Stay Connected
• Describe the findings of the Stay Connected study and its impact on patient retention
• Explain the roles that clinic staff have in retaining patients in care
• Identify role-specific Stay Connected messages

By the end of the training, the Retention Specialist will be able to:

• Explain the importance of retaining PWH in care
• Describe components of the Stay Connected intervention
• Explain the role of the Retention Specialist
• Apply MI and strengths-based communication to build a trusting relationship with patients
• Utilize change talk and sustain talk communication to address ambivalence in behavior change
• Discuss key implementation aspects of Stay Connected which involve Retention Specialists

Course Description

This 90-minute course is for people who provide HIV prevention and care services. It introduces the concept of syndemics, reviews key definitions, and provides examples where HIV is part of a syndemic affecting specific priority populations, including transgender women, Black and Latino men who have sex with men (MSM), and Black women.

Course Objectives

By the end of this training, learners will be able to:

• Describe the difference between a syndemic and co-occurring conditions
• Explain three reasons why recognizing syndemics in their community is important
• List at least two examples of syndemics

Target Audience

Clinical staff, pharmacists, health educators, outreach workers, HIV testers, HIV navigation workers, linkage-to-care providers