Creating a Jail Linkage Program: Tools from the Integrating HIV Innovative Practices Program

September 2013

Author:

IHIP

HRSA HIV/AIDS Bureau

Training Manual

This training manual synthesizes lessons learned from the federally funded, innovative Special Projects of National Significance Enhancing Linkages to HIV Primary Care & Services in Jail Settings Initiative, otherwise known as EnhanceLink. Approximately 85 percent of incarcerated persons in the United States pass solely through jails, yet most interventions focus exclusively on prisons. EnhanceLink thus fills an important research void.

Curriculum

This curriculum is meant to inform implementation of a new jail linkage program and to assist organizations in expanding their current jail work. Target audiences include AIDS service organizations, community-based organizations, Ryan White HIV/ AIDS Program grantees and providers, and local health departments.

The guide offers programmatic steps and planning questions as well as useful templates to get started on jail linkage work.

Handbook

This handbook details New York City Correctional Health Services’ Transitional Care Coordination intervention model, including program planning, implementation steps, and lessons learned. New York City was a SPNS grantee funded under the larger EnhanceLink study.

Pocket Card

This guide is intended for organizations, agencies, and individuals considering strengthening connections between community and jail health care systems to improve continuity of care for recently incarcerated HIV-positive individuals. This guide is meant to provide approaches to implement new jail linkage programs or to help organizations and agencies plan how they can expand their current jail work. The target audience includes health care institutions, agencies, individual clinicians, and community partners with an interest and need to work with incarcerated populations, particularly HIV-positive jail inmates and the recently released.

Webinar: HIV and Jails: A Public Health Opportunity

In this session, listeners will gain an overview of jails and public health opportunities within correctional settings, and learn about key findings from the SPNS Enhancing Jail Linkages initiative. Hear from Barry Zack, CEO of Corrections and Health for The Bridging Group and Anne Spaulding, Emory University assistant professor and principal investigator for the SPNS initiative.

Webinar: How to Build/Expand a Linkage Program

Learn how to build a new jail linkage program and what to consider for expanding an existing one. Jail Linkages SPNS grantees—including Dr. Timothy Flanigan of Miriam Hospital, Alison Jordan of New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and Dr. Ann Avery of Care Alliance Health Center describe the steps their programs took to implement their respective jail linkage programs, and provide advice for others hoping to replicate this work.

Webinar: Creating Partnerships and Navigating the 'Culture of Corrections'

Explore how to secure buy-in and foster partnerships within correctional settings, as well as how to navigate the “culture of corrections.” Hannah Zellman of Philadelphia FIGHT, a SPNS Jail Linkages grantee, will present alongside Dr. Linda Rose Frank and Debra D’Alessandro of the PA/MidAtlantic AIDS Education and Training Center about the work their organizations have done individually and collaboratively in the corrections setting.