Mental Health

Mental health services are psychological and psychiatric treatment and counseling services for individuals with a diagnosed mental illness. They are conducted in a group or individual setting, and provided by a mental health professional licensed or authorized within the State to render such services. Such professionals typically include psychiatrists, psychologists, and licensed clinical social workers.

Resources 44

Best Practices

  • SPNS Black MSM Initiative
    Resources to facilitate the replication or adaption of successful interventions for engaging Black MSM in HIV care.
  • Center for Innovation and Engagement
    Collection of implementation guides on evidence-informed best practices in HIV care delivery.
  • Dissemination of Evidence Informed-Interventions Project (DEII)

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

  • IHIP
    Components of an intervention focused on BMSM with HIV who have not yet been successfully maintained in care.
  • IHIP
    HHOME is a mobile care and systems intervention that helps connect vulnerable and homeless individuals in San Francisco to rapid HIV treatment.
  • IHIP
    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.
  • Center for Advancing Health Policy and Practice

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

  • Best Practices Compilation
    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.
  • Best Practices Compilation
    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.
  • Best Practices Compilation
    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.
  • Best Practices Compilation
    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.
  • Evidence-Informed Interventions (E2i)
    CPT is an evidence-based, cognitive behavioral treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) delivered by a behavioral health therapist trained in CPT.
  • Best Practices Compilation
    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.
  • Evidence-Informed Interventions (E2i)
    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.
  • Best Practices Compilation
    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.
  • Best Practices Compilation
    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.
  • Best Practices Compilation
    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.
  • Center for Innovation and Engagement
    A tailored service delivery model, which includes increasing access to supportive services and providing HIV care services in community settings.
  • Center for Innovation and Engagement
    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.
  • Evidence-Informed Interventions (E2i)
    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.
  • Best Practices Compilation
    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.
  • Best Practices Compilation
    Seeking Safety helps people who have experienced trauma and/or substance use disorder gain safe coping skills through a flexible 12-session intervention. The University of California, San Diego Mother Child Adolescent HIV Program and the Multicultural AIDS Coalition implemented Seeking Safety as part of E2i, an initiative funded by the RWHAP Part F SPNS program from 2017–2021. Participants had higher rates of retention in care and viral suppression after 12 months of the intervention.
  • Evidence-Informed Interventions (E2i)
    Seeking Safety is an evidence-based coping skills intervention that helps people attain safety from trauma and/or addiction.
  • Center for Innovation and Engagement
    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.
  • Best Practices Compilation
    Five clinics implemented Tailored Motivational Interviewing (TMI) to better serve young people with HIV as part of a RWHAP Part F SPNS initiative. Motivational interviewing is a well-documented approach to engage youth in care and facilitate behavior change in a variety of contexts. Clients participating in TMI received integrated HIV medical care and TMI, and demonstrated improved engagement in care and health outcomes.
  • Best Practices Compilation
    Tailored Motivational Interviewing (TMI) delivers brief motivational interviewing counseling sessions customized to encourage people with HIV to engage in HIV care, take HIV medications as prescribed, and improve other health-related behaviors. Three sites implemented TMI as part of E2i, an initiative funded by the RWHAP Part F SPNS program from 2017 to 2021. Clients who participated in TMI had significant improvement in engagement in care, prescription of antiretroviral therapy, retention in care, and viral suppression.
  • Best Practices Compilation
    The Rutgers New Jersey Medical School created a transgender health program and integrated it into their Infectious Disease Practice. The program conducted community outreach to engage transgender men and women in care, trained all staff on gender affirming care, hired transgender staff, provided gender affirming care and hormone treatments onsite, and offered mental health support to patients.
  • Best Practices Compilation
    T.W.E.E.T. aims to engage transgender women in HIV care by combining weekly peer-based education and discussion groups, leadership training, community building, and the provision of supportive services. Three sites implemented T.W.E.E.T. as part of E2i, an initiative funded by the RWHAP Part F SPNS program from 2017–2021. Clients had improved outcomes across the HIV care continuum 12 months after enrollment in T.W.E.E.T.

Resources

Webinars

Conference Presentations

The University of Alabama at Birmingham
Presenters:
Ellen Eaton
2022 National Ryan White Conference on HIV Care & Treatment
HRSA
Presenters:
Alex Keuroghlian, Nicole Chavis, Beth Bourdeau, Demetrios Psihopaidas
2022 National Ryan White Conference on HIV Care & Treatment
Oregon Health Authority
Presenters:
Heather Hargraves, Sara Pyle, Jeffrey Williams
2022 National Ryan White Conference on HIV Care & Treatment
Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon
Presenters:
Taylor Gleffe, Daniel Howell
2022 National Ryan White Conference on HIV Care & Treatment
JSI Research & Training Institute
Presenters:
Molly Higgins-Biddle, Juli Powers, Isabel Evans, Liz Sweet
2022 National Ryan White Conference on HIV Care & Treatment

Technical Assistance

  • The central hub of the AETC Program, the clinical training arm of the RWHAP, through HIV curricula, technical support to regional AETCs on practice transformation and best practices, and housing of all AETC-developed tools for HIV clinical staff. Project period: 2019-2024.
  • Clinician consultation on HCV management, HIV management, perinatal HIV/AIDS, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), post-exposure prophylaxis, substance use. Project period: 2016-2025.

  • The NHC provides ongoing, up-to-date information needed to meet the core competency knowledge for HIV prevention, screening, diagnosis, and ongoing treatment and care to healthcare providers in the United States. Project period: 2020-2022.
  • The AETC Program offers clinician education and tailored capacity-building assistance. Project period: 2019-2024.
  • Initiative documenting best practice strategies and interventions that have been shown to improve HIV outcomes in a "real world" setting and can be replicated by other programs. Project period: 2021-2024.