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February 2005 NORA Receives Overview of SAMHSA’s HIV Programs On Monday, February 14, the National Organizations Responding to AIDS (NORA) coalition, for which AIDS Action serves as the convener, held its monthly meeting. The main topic of discussion this month was the HIV programs of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), including those funded by Minority AIDS Initiative (MAI). The invited speaker was Claudia Richards, who serves as chief of the HIV Behavioral Health Issues Branch—an office within the Division of Knowledge Application and Development in SAMHSA’s Center for Substance Abuse Prevention. Ms. Richards explained that SAMHSA’s mission is “to build resilience and facilitate recovery for people with or at risk for substance abuse and mental illness.” To accomplish this mission, SAMHSA has three centers – the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT), the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP), and the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS). While the majority of SAMHSA’s HIV programs are part of CSAP, the other centers do some HIV prevention work. The centers’ HIV efforts are coordinated by CSAP’s director, Beverly Watts Davis. In fiscal year 2005, SAMHSA received a total of $111 million in MAI funding—with CMHS receiving $10 million, CSAP $40 million, and CSAT $61 million, Ms. Richards noted. CMHS started its MAI program in fiscal year 2001 to establish linkages to screening, assessment, and care for HIV positive people with mental health issues. CSAT started its MAI programs in fiscal year 1999 with grants to expand capacity for substance abuse treatment and HIV care programs. CSAP also started its MAI programs in fiscal year 1999 with targeted capacity grants for substance abuse prevention programs that include elements of HIV prevention in minority community-based organizations. According to Ms. Richards, MAI funding has been an important resource for CSAT and CSAP over the years, giving them both the capacity to provide planning grants and service delivery grants to organizations that had not previously received federal government funds. Ms. Richards then mentioned that among the grants provided through these centers is a $20.6 million CSAP grant for Substance Abuse, HIV and Hepatitis prevention for minority populations and minority reentry populations* in communities of color. CSAP will be accepting applications for this grant until March 17. If funded, an organization would receive approximately $250,000 over a five-year period. According to Ms. Richards, CSAP would like to fund 60 to 80 organizations through this program. Another initiative started at SAMHSA, is the new $4.8 million Rapid HIV Testing Initiative. It is “designed to reduce HIV incidence rates among minority populations who are at greater risk of acquiring or transmitting HIV/AIDS than their non-minority counterparts,” Ms. Richards stated. SAMHSA intends to achieve this goal by providing free rapid tests to their MAI grantees who already offer testing in their community-based organizations. SAMHSA has bulk purchased 312,000 rapid test kits, control kits, and confirmatory kits from the manufacturer for distribution, Ms. Richards reported. To be selected, grantees must also meet SAMHSA’s readiness requirements which are listed below:
SAMHSA has selected the District of Columbia (DC) as a pilot city for implementation of the new initiative. In addition, eight states have been identified as “priority,” areas and will receive the kits in the next stage of implementation. These states, which have met the readiness requirements for the Rapid HIV Testing Initiative, are California, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas. AIDS Action staff will continue to monitor the implementation of this pilot project. SAMHSA has agreed to update us in six months. In the meantime, more information on this project is available at http://www.samhsa.gov/HIVHep/rhti_factsheet.aspx * HIV positive clients who are leaving the prison system and returning to their own communities. For more information about NORA, e-mail Jessica Tytel at jtytel@aidsaction.org. |
