Mental Health

Resources to facilitate the replication or adaption of successful interventions for engaging Black MSM in HIV care.

Collection of implementation guides on evidence-informed best practices in HIV care delivery.

Evidence-informed HIV care interventions (jail transitional care, buprenorphine, patient navigation, peer support for women of color).

Components of an intervention focused on BMSM with HIV who have not yet been successfully maintained in care.

HHOME is a mobile care and systems intervention that helps connect vulnerable and homeless individuals in San Francisco to rapid HIV treatment.

KC Life 360 is an employment-focused intervention that utilizes the intersection between employment services, HIV care and treatment, and housing to improve health outcomes of people with HIV.

Insights from a HRSA SPNS initiative on care coordinator/patient navigation interventions for vulnerable populations.

To better integrate primary care with behavioral health services, providers were trained on trauma-informed care and contracts and standards of care were modified to require that medical providers conduct mental health screenings. As a result, receipt of mental health services and care retention rates improved.

2BU is a case management intervention designed to engage and reengage Black men who have sex with men with HIV into HIV care services. Peer case managers work closely with clients to increase HIV health literacy, troubleshoot accessibility issues to HIV care, and connect clients directly to behavioral health and support services. Clients who participated in 2BU had increased retention in care and viral suppression 12 months after enrollment.

Buprenorphine Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder in HIV Primary Care is an integrated care approach designed to reduce opioid use and overdose while improving client engagement in HIV care. Greater Lawrence Family Health Center and Med Centro, Inc. implemented this integrated care approach as part of E2i, an initiative funded by the RWHAP Part F SPNS program from 2017–2021. Clients who participated in this intervention received integrated care—treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) and HIV in a single setting—to improve retention in care, viral suppression, and engagement in OUD treatment.

Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) is an evidence-based, cognitive behavioral treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder. Through individual or group sessions of CPT, clients learn to recognize and challenge unhelpful thoughts and beliefs related to trauma. Positive Impact Health Centers and Western North Carolina Community Health Services implemented CPT as part of E2i, an initiative funded by the RWHAP Part F SPNS program from 2017 to 2021. While not statistically significant, CPT participants had increased engagement in care and retention in care from enrollment to 12 months.

CPT is an evidence-based, cognitive behavioral treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) delivered by a behavioral health therapist trained in CPT.

Collaborative Care Management (CoCM) integrates mental health and primary care, with a care team of a primary care provider, behavioral health care manager, and psychiatric consultant. Together they provide comprehensive and coordinated care to people with HIV who have co-occurring depression or other psychiatric disorders. Four sites implemented CoCM as part of E2i, an initiative funded by the RWHAP Part F SPNS program from 2017–2021. CoCM led to statistically significant increases in antiretroviral therapy (ART) prescription and viral suppression.

Collaborative Care Management (CoCM) is an evidence-based intervention that integrates behavioral health care with primary care in order to treat depression and other common psychiatric disorders.

The AIDS Institute is committed to promoting, monitoring, and supporting the quality of clinical services for people with HIV in New York State. The Adolescent Quality Learning Network (AQLN) is a collaborative of 16 HIV Adolescent/Young Adult Specialized Care Center (SCC) programs. In collaboration with the AIDS Institute, SCC providers selected a quality improvement project aimed to raise viral suppression rates by improving access to mental health services.

LINK LA is a 12-session, 24-week peer navigation intervention for people with HIV who are scheduled to be released from incarceration. LINK LA peer navigators focus on behavioral changes that promote medication adherence and retention in care, while providing social support and facilitating communication with medical providers. LINK LA showed improvements in linkage to and retention in HIV care and viral suppression among people with HIV re-entering the community after incarceration.

The RWHAP Part F SPNS program funded the Building a Medical Home for Multiply Diagnosed HIV-Positive Homeless Populations initiative from 2012–2017, to provide coordinated housing supports and HIV, behavioral and mental health care to people experiencing homelessness. Nine funded demonstration sites created partnerships with housing providers, integrated behavioral health and HIV care, and provided intensive patient navigator services. A multi-demonstration site evaluation found that, compared to baseline, participants were more likely to be virally suppressed after 12 months in the intervention.

A tailored service delivery model, which includes increasing access to supportive services and providing HIV care services in community settings.

Intervention leverages both individual and group sessions to address issues that influence youth engagement in HIV care, including stigma, disclosure, healthy relationships, substance use, and future life planning.

Project CONNECT is an evidence-informed intervention that engages Black men who have sex with men with HIV into medical care through early orientation to the clinic, relationship building, and enhanced personal contact.

Project Vogue provided community-based care coordination, HIV care, and behavioral health services to Black men who have sex with men (MSM) within New York City’s House & Ball community to address the unique cultural barriers that Black MSM experience when trying to access care. Project Vogue participants were linked to behavioral health services as well as to non-clinical supportive services, such as food and housing assistance.

Seeking Safety is an evidence-based coping skills intervention that helps people attain safety from trauma and/or addiction.

Description of a communication-centered approach to service delivery that provides a compassionate and supportive environment to promote intrinsic behavior change among youth 16 to 29 with newly diagnosed HIV.

HIV clinical training resources for HRSA's AIDS Education and Training Centers Program.

Review of the basics of trauma and modules on trauma-informed approaches in the delivery of HIV care.

Online clinician training platform with evidence-based core competency training on HIV prevention, screening, diagnosis, care, and key populations.

U.S. federal agency that leads public health efforts to advance the behavioral health of the nation.

Tips for RWHAP AIDS Drug Assistance Programs in supporting access to mental health medications and related services.

Resources on integrating primary care with behavioral health services to better address mental health and substance use needs.

This is a Consumer-friendly website with tools to help with the basics of:

• Mental Health
• The signs of Mental Illness
• How to talk about mental health
• How to get help

 The site also includes tools for providers and a treatment locator.

Roadmap on steps to take in setting up depression screening in a program.

Medical case management acuity tool to assess severity of needs of clients living with HIV in various areas of functioning and categories of severity.

Tools developed by a Part A program to monitor programs and services.

Sixteen-question tool to screen for mental health and substance abuse conditions, takes under 15 minutes to administer. Developed under multiple Federal funding sources including HRSA. Excel file includes manual and electronic scoring tools, followed by scoring key.

Screening tool designed for use by non-mental health professionals to assess mental health psychiatric disorders.

Webinar series featuring HIV care innovations developed under the HRSA HIV/AIDS Bureau’s Special Projects of National Significance (SPNS) program. Sessions share insights on how to replicate SPNS interventions. 

Recordings of the TAP-in webinars on topics critical to the Ending the HIV Epidemic Initiative.

Review of strategies to support Ryan White core medical and support service access/delivery within and/or in combination with local syringe services programs (SSPs).

Highlight of two programs that successfully engaged in HIV care clients who are hard-to-reach and serve via delivery of HIV primary care, behavioral health, and housing.

Learn how two successful programs are addressing homelessness and housing instability and behavioral health disorders, improving client engagement and retention in care, and observing improved rates of viral suppression.