by Sarah Rutledge Fischer
You have probably never heard of H-CAP (HIV Care and Prevention Group) but if you or anyone you love is HIV+ or at risk for HIV in the greater Memphis area, you have probably benefited from its work.
H-CAP has been around since 2008, when Shelby County Mayor AC Wharton appointed the first group (known then as the Planning Council) to manage Ryan White Program funds that had been awarded to Shelby County by the Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA).
The Ryan White program, named for an Indiana teenager who was infected with HIV during a blood transfusion
in the 1980s, is a federal program that funds medical and support services for people living with HIV/AIDS. Shelby County qualifies for Ryan White Program A funds as a Transitional Grant Area—a metropolitan area with 1,000 to 1,999 new cases of AIDS reported in the past five years and at least 1,500 people living with AIDS—as well as other more targeted grants such as the Minority AIDS Initiative funds, which are used to provide HIV/AIDS services to target racial and minority populations. In recent years, Shelby County has received around seven million dollars in Ryan White Part A and Minority AIDS Initiative funds. Of that, over 85 percent went directly to HIV services, with the remaining 15 percent covering administrative costs and quality management.
Ensuring proper use and management of the funds is a large part of what H-CAP members do. H-CAP is divided into four committees: the Executive Committee, the Priorities and Comprehensive Planning Committee, the Evaluation and Assessment Committee. Each plays an important role in ensuring that Ryan White funds serve their intended purpose.
The Priorities and Comprehensive Planning Committee, chaired by LeRoy Springer, is responsible for assessing the needs of the community, setting priorities, and allocating resources. The Evaluation and Assessment Committee, chaired by Ace Brooks, sets the standards of care for provided services, assesses the administrative mechanisms of the organizations, and evaluates the services rendered. The Community Partnership Committee, chaired by Marshe Turner, is responsible for membership, recruitment, training, and ensuring consumer involvement. The Executive Committee, co- chaired by Dewayne Murrell, Edward “Eddie” Wiley, and secretary Nicole Gottier, oversees the planning group operations and ensures the orderly and integrated work of all committees. Together these committees work as a flexible but unified structure that allows the group to identify and attend to needs that might otherwise have slipped by unattended and reevaluate programs that are no longer serving their intended purpose.
The organization’s evaluation and revision of its approach to dental health services is an excellent example. Poor dental health can have a detrimental impact on overall health, fostering infection and introducing a large population of germs
to the body. For this reason, dental care is extremely important among populations of people living with HIV/ AIDS. Many of the individuals served by Shelby County’s Ryan White funds have never received dental care, leading to severe decay and other dental problems.
For many years, H-CAP managed a small $2500 annual dental program. Each year the funds would run
out quickly, and there was little improvement on the community’s overall dental health. H-CAP’s Evaluation and Assessment Committee undertook a study and determined that doubling the dental program investment for one year would enable the fund to address most of the community’s major dental procedure needs. After that, the program could return to a lower budget and resume its primary focus on routine dental care. The plan was followed to great success.
The people on H-CAP’s committees are uniquely qualified to identify and assess such issues—they are the people who fight against them and live with them every day. H-CAP’s committees are made up of service providers (community based organizations, AIDS, social service providers, mental health providers, substance abuse treatment providers, and AIDS services organizations) and service consumers (people living with HIV/AIDS and consumers of Ryan White funded services). The inclusion of service providers is important but not unusual. It is the inclusion of the service consumers that makes H-CAP great. Under the Ryan White Program one-third of planning group members must be consumers—people living with HIV/AIDS and/or receiving HIV/AIDS related services. In Memphis, there are currently 36 full members of H-CAP and 5 alternate members. HIV/AIDS service consumers proudly make up 47 percent.
The advantages of having such a strong consumer presence in the planning groups are many, but one of the most important outcomes has been giving the HIV affected community of Memphis a place at the table. The opportunity to sit side by side with service providers and determine the best course for the resources meant for their community has empowered a community that is most often abused or ignored.
At H-CAP, this community is never ignored. Even in the midst of bureaucracy and committee work, in every meeting, the third item on the agenda always reads as follows:
A brief moment of silence will be held at each meeting in honor and remembrance of all those individuals living with and affected by HIV and AIDS in the community, as well as those people who have lost their lives to the disease here and around the world.
H-CAP is always looking for dedicated individuals to be a part of the decision-making process. Opportunities to serve in H-CAP are available for anyone living with HIV/ AIDS or providing HIV/AIDS services. If you live in Shelby, Fayette, Tipton, Tate, Tunica, Desoto, Marshall or Crittenden county and are interested in H-CAP, you are encouraged
to attend a H-CAP meeting. For more information visit the H-CAP website at hivmemphis.org or call 901-222-8996.
