Substance Abuse / MAI
HIV/AIDS Minority Program
The name of the project is "Turning Point" - because we intend to create a turning point for African women and their rate of HIV/AIDS in Montgomery County. The purpose of "Turning Point" is four-fold: 1)Reduce the incidence of HIV/AIDS among African American women in Montgomery County by providing education regarding safer sex practices and substance usage and by providing additional education to their sex partners on the same issues, 2) Increase testing among the African American Community, 3) Create an assessment and prevention system that more fully integrates substance abuse and HIV data collection, and prevention and intervention strategies, and 4) Change norms around the acceptability of addressing the co-occurring issues of HIV/AIDS transmission and substance abuse within the African American community.
To accomplish the above, COSA-NCADD has partnered with Montgomery Aids Outreach. The project will focus on African American women within Montgomery County and in the surrounding River Region of Alabama. Latina and Hispanic women seeking services through the project will also be served. The purpose of the initiative is to 1) reduce the incidence of HIV/AIDS among African American women in Montgomery County by reducing sexual risk behavior by heterosexually-active African American women at highest risk for HIV by implementing the "Sisters Informing Sisters about Topics on AIDS" (SISTA) Program, a peer-led, skill-building intervention project to prevent HIV infection in African American women. In addition, another objective is to reduce sexual risk behavior by the current and potential sex partners of the target population by implementing the "Many Men, Many Voices" (3MV) Program, a 7-session group-level intervention program to prevent HIV and sexually transmitted diseases among black men who have sex with men (MSM) who may or may not identify themselves as gay. Another objective is to increase HIV testing in the African American community, especially among African American women and their current and potential sex partners.
We want to build capacity within the African American faith community in Montgomery County to address the co-occurring and related issues of HIV/AIDS transmission and substance abuse within the African American community and transmission issues in their congregations.
HIV/AIDS Faithbased Project
COSA-NCADD was the recipient of a SAMHSA-CSAP Faith Partners grant through SAMHSA for funding to provide substance abuse and HIV/AIDS education and awareness activities, informational materials, and community outreach activities, the purpose of which is to encourage individuals to get tested for HIV/AIDS and to avoid high-risk behaviors that could lead to HIV/AIDS infection. Since receipt of the grant, COSA-NCADD has provided substance abuse and HIV/AIDS education and awareness activities, informational materials, and community outreach activities to persons residing in Montgomery County, Alabama, a largely urban area. Montgomery has a high minority population, with 60% being African-American. This grant has been instrumental in increasing the community's ability to provide substance abuse and HIV/AIDS services, increasing partner interest, avoiding duplication of services, and expanding services that did not exist in the community prior to receipt of this grant. COSA-NCADD has partnered with Montgomery AIDS Outreach and other members of the Montgomery Unified Prevention System to sponsor numerous community events. We have reached the community through local churches, a common place to reach large numbers of the public. In addition, we have utilized community events, universities, coalition partners, county jails treatment facilities, juvenile justice facilities, health fairs and schools. COSA-NCADD intends will form a task force from members of the current Montgomery Unified Prevention System (MUPS) Coalition (currently charged with substance abuse prevention assessment and planning) and from outside members of various agencies and community groups concerned with the rate of HIV/AIDS in our community to examine the needs assessment and work towards integrated approaches of prevention within our community.