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Outreach Activities in 10 Adolescent-Targeted Projects
for HIV/AIDS Services: A Cross-Cutting Evaluation of the Health Resources and Services
Administration Special Projects of National Significance Program
Executive Summary
In October and December 1993, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Special Projects of National Significance (SPNS) Program funded 10 national demonstration projects targeting adolescents and youth for HIV/AIDS services.
This report is the first in a series that evaluates the efforts of the 10 projects. It considers the outreach activities that these projects used during their first two years of funding. The focus is on outreach made to agencies and groups, as well as to individuals from project target populations.
Outreach, both to prospective clients and to those agencies and organizations that serve prospective clients, was important in establishing new programs or enhancing existing ones. The projects used a range of outreach activities to build their programs.
More than 11,000 low-intensity contacts and 5,000 high-intensity individual outreach contacts were provided by the 10 adolescent SPNS projects between December 1993 and March 1996. These individual outreach efforts reached a broad range of youth living with and at-risk-for-HIV disease. In addition to discussing issues such as HIV risk reduction, testing, and services, outreach workers distributed risk reduction items and made referrals to HIV testing, case management, and other services as needed.
A total of 870 agency outreach presentations were documented in the data system for the cross-cutting evaluation. These presentations covered HIV services and health services, and youth empowerment for negotiating the service system. The majority of agency outreach efforts targeted health and social service providers, although a large percentage targeted youth.
The aggregate activities of the 10 grantees are significant. Thousands of individuals were reached through small- and large-group presentations, lectures, advocacy sessions, and other outreach efforts. Contacts have been with both younger and older adults, youth, and people of varied professional and ethnic/racial backgrounds. The 10 grantees significantly altered the "friendliness" of local and national service provider networks for youth by increasing awareness of young people’s needs, available services, and state-of-the-art service delivery methods.
As with the group activities, the individual outreach activities targeted varied individuals. It is clear from the topics discussed during outreach contacts that individual needs for information, informal counseling, and other advice prior to formally enrolling in the program were met. Many of the outreach contacts involved discussing "hassles" with youth. Such general complaints – frequently about items that may not seem central to the delivery of HIV services – often must be addressed to gain the trust of the potential service recipient.
Qualitatively, the 10 adolescent SPNS projects have identified a number of successes in their outreach efforts. All 10 of these projects indicated that outreach has enhanced their programs by increasing awareness of services in the community, and by bringing individual youth into services. Most important, the 10 adolescent SPNS programs indicated that outreach has helped them better reach young people living with HIV and those at-high-risk-for-HIV.
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