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Chapter
8: Conclusion: Next Steps
Community planning for
HIV prevention efforts is an intensive and time-consuming
process involving the cooperation and collaboration of community
members, AIDS service providers, Bureau of Health staff, and the Centers
for Disease Control. Experience
has shown that, because of the complex nature of this process, it is
difficult to plan for future components of the planning process and even
more challenging to accurately predict when these components will be
completed. Such difficulties
aside, several important projects have emerged during the course of the
past year which need to be addressed; some during coming months, and some
on an on-going basis for future planning efforts.
This document concludes, then, with a tentative look into the
future of HIV Prevention Community Planning for the State of Maine.
Some short term CPG
projects include:
Completion of Analysis
for the Statewide CPG Needs Assessment:
Some Needs Assessment
data continue to be analyzed by Bureau of Health and Margaret Chase Smith
Center staff. These data pertain specifically to HIV service providers and
the extent of services available to Maine communities. Results will supplement other data already obtained from the
Assessment about the needs and perceptions of at-risk populations
concerning HIV prevention efforts.
What the needs assessment
reveals about services in Maine will provide a better understanding of HIV
prevention and service, and which HIV prevention needs remain unmet for
priority populations. This
will assist CPG efforts to conduct “gap” analyses, such as the one
described in Chapter 7.
Analysis of these results
will be completed during late summer and early fall, and will be available
to CPG members and others in the fall of 1999.
Reprioritization of
Populations at Risk:
During the coming year,
the CPG will initiate a process to reprioritize populations.
Although HIV transmission patterns in Maine have changed little in
recent years, the current configuration of Priority Populations contains
broad population descriptors which make it difficult to determine and
prioritize needs and interventions. For
example, the population described as
“Other Populations with Special Needs,” encompasses what could
be considered six discrete populations:
“Homeless People,” “People with Mental Illness,”
“Incarcerated People,” “Deaf People,” and “People for Whom
English is Not the Primary Language.”
Although all of these populations have different needs, these needs
are diverse and do not necessarily coincide.
Reprioritization will allow the CPG the opportunity to revisit
existing population configurations and may result in the use of more
specific population descriptors.
This process will be
science-based and will involve the use of a standard prioritization tool.
It is anticipated that reprioritization will be completed in
Spring, 2000 to coincide with the release of Bureau of Health Requests for
Proposals for HIV prevention grantsHIHI.
Long-term
or on-going projects will include:
Performance-Based
Evaluation for CPG Priority Populations
During 1997, the State of
Maine enacted legislation mandating that social service providers employ a
"client-centered, outcome-oriented process that is based on
measurable performance indicators and desired outcomes and includes the
regular assessment of the quality of services provided."
In response to this legislation, two specific, long-term project
goals for HIV prevention were developed and adopted by the Bureau of
Health, HIV/STD Program for use with HIV prevention grantees:
-
The health of all
Maine people will be improved by promoting behaviors, community
building, knowledge and/or attitudes that reduce the risk of HIV
infection
-
HIV infected persons
in Maine will have reduced morbidity and mortality through increased
access to early medical intervention.
In order to satisfy these
long-term goals, specific, measurable short term goals and objectives are
negotiated with each grant holder.
The CPG has not yet
developed short term goals and measurable objectives for each priority
population and for the CPG process. During
the coming year, the statewide needs assessment work will be completed and
the CPG will attempt to link documented population based needs with
specific short term goals and measurable objectives for each population.
Recruitment of members:
One on-going concern is
with the parity, inclusion and representation of CPG membership to ensure
that member represent those communities most effected by the epidemic.
Currently, we are seeking representation from American Indians,
males who have sex with males, youth (and in particular, young males who
have sex with males). We will
continue to actively seek out and recruit appropriate representatives from
affected Maine communities.
We are also striving to
include people from the more rural, northern segment of the state.
Since Maine is the least densely populated state east of the
Mississippi and many members travel long distances to attend meetings,
finding representation from northern Maine has proven particularly
challenging. To help facilitate this, the CPG has been examining the
possibility of interactive video conferencing, and will continue to
research the feasibility of this option during the coming year.
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