Expanded HIV Testing, Prevention and Counseling for Homeless Women and Adolescents

Grant Information
Categories	Healthcare
Location	United States
Cycle Year	2013

Organization Information
Organization Name (provided by applicant)	Shelter Health Services
Organization Name (provided by automatic EIN validation)
Secondary Addressee
EIN
Website	http://www.shelterhealthservices.com

Contact Information
Contact Name	Michael Sowyak
Phone	704 334-2235
E-mail	msowyak@gmail.com
Address	534 Spratt Street Charlotte NC 28206

Additional Information
Used for	Increase the reach of the program by 1) offering more testing opportunities for clinic clients and shelter residents who have not visited the clinic, 2) doubling the frequency of prevention discussion groups to 20+ year, 3) adding support groups and mentoring to the program’s existing RAIN case management for clients who are HIV+.
Benefits	Halting the spread of HIV/AIDS one person at a time requires leveraging all contacts with vulnerable, high risk persons, worldwide. In our corner of the world, annually more than 400 uninsured, medically indigent homeless women living in poverty will receive prevention information, 200 will know their status and if HIV+ receive counseling on living a safer and healthier life. Hopefully these are 400 women who will not contribute to the devastating consequences of the multiplier effect.
Proposal Description	$5,000 is requested to support in part clinic staff expenses to increase the reach of our HIV prevention and testing program and Clearview tests. The clinic is located within the Center of Hope homeless shelter, providing unique access to a highly vulnerable population. Annually more than 700 homeless women will visit the clinic for a variety of health issues. These clinic visits can be leveraged to engage them in HIV prevention and enlist their permission to be tested. Proactively integrating HIV prevention and testing into our Early Detection and Prevention initiative will increase the number of clients that participate in the HIV program. Clinic nurses will be present key HIV prevention points, administer the test, relay negative results and request RAIN counselor to relay positive results. Reaching those shelter residents who do not visit the clinic will be achieved mainly by our clinic outreach discussion groups and activities. Clinic staff plan the groups, recruit educators, recruit attendees, co-present the material, administer tests/screens and follow-up on results. Each HIV Prevention discussion group averages 10+ attendees. The frequency will double from monthly to twice a month, doubling the number that will attend. On average 40% of discussion group attendees are tested. We don’t expect this percentage to increase dramatically, but with twice the number of attendees, the total number tested will increase. Annually from walk-in clinic clients and outreach activities 35% of adult clients are tested (250). With the increase of homeless women in the shelter, and those who access the clinic, simply maintaining 35% testing factor results in a 20% increase in the total number tested (280+).