Section 1:

Summary of Quantitative Data Collected by

Michigan Protection and Advocacy Service

Through August 26, 1996

This report presents information which describes clients served, services provided, trainings given, and referrals made by the Michigan Protection and Advocacy Service. The information is based on data collected using a series of one to two page data collection modules. As of August 26, 1996, the Michigan Protection and Advocacy Service had submitted data for eleven modules. For each module, a description of its purpose, the number of forms received, and the range of service dates to which they pertain is presented below in Table 1.

Table 1

Data Collection Module Description and Count

The remainder of this section on quantitative data is divided as follows, based on the type of service provided by the Michigan Protection and Advocacy Service. These sub-divisions are:

Training Sessions (pages 6 through 26)

The nature of the training sessions that were conducted (from Module 3);

Characteristics of the trainers (from Module 56);

Characteristics of the trainees (from Module 53);

The trainees’ assessment of the sessions (from Module 54);

Technical Assistance (pages 27 through 31)

Technical assistance that was provided (from Modules 5 and 6);

Project Referrals (pages 32 through 33)

Referrals made by the project (Modules 51 and 61);

Direct Services Provided (pages 34 through 42)

Direct services provided by the program (from Module 2B);

The clients who received these direct services (from Module 1);

In the case of legal services, the result of the assistance (from Module 68A).

Training Sessions

The Michigan Protection and Advocacy Service conducted 82 training sessions between October 17, 1994 and July 18, 1996 to impact attitudes, skills and behaviors, and knowledge related to HIV/AIDS. The majority of these training sessions focused on AIDS and the law and/or the training of community advocates for HIV-positive individuals. Project staff completed Module 3 (Presentation Training Form), in which the nature of each training session was described. These training sessions ranged from one hour to eight hours, with an average (median) length of two hours.

What were the Purposes for the Training Sessions?

Training sessions can be conducted for a number of reasons, including agency or community outreach, an education update, the teaching of methods and skills, and strengthening client and policy advocacy skills. For each of the training sessions, project staff indicated the purpose of the training. As it is possible for a training session to have multiple purposes, project staff had the option of indicating multiple purposes. As shown in Figure 1, which provides the percentage of sessions in which a given purpose is presented, the Michigan Protection and Advocacy Service’s trainings focused on advocacy and education issues.

Figure 1. Purpose for Training Session.

• Occurring as a purpose in nearly all of the sessions, the most commonly stated training purpose was an education update (93.9 percent).

• Client advocacy (90.2 percent) and policy advocacy (86.6 percent) were also purposes of training in nearly all of the sessions.

• Other common purposes of training sessions included the recruitment of volunteers (62.2 percent) and community outreach (59.8 percent).

A hierarchical cluster analysis was performed on the purpose for training session variables to investigate which training purposes tended to occur at the same training session. This information is summarized on the next page in Figure 2, which displays the clustering of the seven purpose of training session variables. This graph, called a dendogram, is interpreted by observing which variables are attached by the branches of the graph. Further, the closer to 0 on the distance axis, the stronger the cluster. Thus, in Figure 2, "client advocacy" and "community outreach" is the first (and strongest) cluster, although "education update" also appears to be clustered with these two variables as well. Therefore, these three training purposes tended to occur in the same training sessions. The other meaningful cluster appears to be between "recruit volunteers" and "teaching methods & skills".

Figure 2. Cluster Analysis of Purpose for Training Session Variables.

Where were Training Sessions Conducted?

Project staff identified the different settings in which training sessions were conducted. The various training settings included hotels or conference sites, community-based organizations, health care settings, religious settings, schools or other educational settings, social service agencies, the workplace, and others settings such as government agencies and television studios (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Settings of Training Sessions.

• Training sessions were conducted in a wide variety of settings.

• The majority (80.4 percent) of the training sessions occurred in community settings, whether in community-based organizations (28.0 percent), other community settings such as a hotel or conference site (26.8 percent), or in a school/educational setting (25.6 percent).

What Instructional Methods were Used During the Training Sessions?

Project staff indicated which type of instructional strategies were used for the training sessions. Nearly all (98.8 percent) of the training sessions used lecture formats. Additionally, most (79.3 percent) of the training sessions utilized interactive training.

What Topics were Covered at the Training Sessions?

At each training session, several topics were discussed. Topics covered are grouped into seven categories: (1) medical intervention and management-diagnosis treatment, (2) psychosocial issues-case management, (3) special populations, (4) prevention of HIV transmission, (5) workplace issues, (6) legal advocacy-ethical issues and community empowerment, (7) personal-interpersonal issues. While the legal advocacy-ethical issues-community empowerment category was the most commonly covered training category, special populations and workplace issues were also common training topics. Table 2 on the next page provides the percentage of training sessions in which the various topics were discussed (includes only those topics which were discussed in more than 5 percent of training sessions).

Table 2

Training Topics

In general, topics covered during training sessions conducted by the Michigan Protection and Advocacy Service had the following characteristics:

• Overall, legal advocacy-ethical issues was the most commonly covered training category, with all five specific topics from the category discussed in at least two-thirds of the training sessions.

• The most frequently covered topics included ethical/legal issues (96.3 percent), confidentiality (84.1 percent), HIV sensitivity (78.0 percent), and empowerment (75.6 percent).

• Other topics commonly discussed included health insurance issues (69.5 percent), consent (68.3 percent), community AIDS response (67.1 percent), gay/lesbian issues (64.6 percent), and dealing with health workers’ fears (62.2 percent).

A hierarchical cluster analysis was performed on the training topic categories, to investigate which topics were commonly discussed at the same training session. Figure 4 below provides the dendogram resulting from the cluster analysis.

Figure 4. Cluster Analysis of Training Topics.

• "Special Populations" and "Legal Advocacy-Ethical Issues-Community-Empowerment" represented the strongest cluster, indicating that these topics were commonly discussed at the same training sessions.

• Also commonly discussed together were "Medical Intervention and Management - Diagnosis Treatment", "HIV Prevention", and "Personal Issues."

What were the Characteristics of the Trainers?

Information related to characteristics of the trainers was gathered in Module 56. A total of nine trainers participated in the Michigan Protection and Advocacy Service’s training sessions. Six of the trainers were male (66.7 percent) and three were female (33.3 percent). Trainers ranged in age from 29 to 44 years old (M = 35.3 and sd = 4.5). Eight of the nine were Caucasian (88.9 percent), while the other trainer was Latino (11.1 percent). Seven of the nine trainers identified themselves as gay or lesbian (77.8 percent), another trainer identified his/her sexual orientation as bisexual (11.1 percent), and the final trainer preferred not to state his/her sexual orientation (11.1 percent).

What are the Professional Characteristics of Trainers?

Trainers were asked to identify relevant professional characteristics such as their highest degree obtained, any relevant credentials held, and their primary work setting.

All of the trainers indicated that they had a college degree.

• Two-thirds (66.7 percent) of the trainers are attorneys, and another trainer identified him/herself as an advocate.

• The remaining two trainers had Bachelor’s degrees; one trainer identified him/herself as a trainer, while the final trainer did not indicate having a professional credential.

Trainers further recorded the type of organization they are involved in.

• Two-thirds (66.7 percent) of the trainers are involved in community-based organizations, while two other trainers (22.2 percent) are involved in government agencies.

Professional experience was also documented.

• The professional experience of the trainers ranged between 4 and 22 years, with an average (mean) value of 9.33 years (SD = 6.0 years).

What were the Trainers’ Experiences with HIV-related Issues?

Trainers were also asked to indicate their training, experience, and the nature of their primary involvement with people with HIV/AIDS.

• The trainers’ involvement with people with HIV ranged from two to six years, with an average (mean) value of 3.8 years (SD = 1.3 years).

• The trainers’ most common primary involvement with people with HIV was in a legal role, either as an attorney (77.8 percent) or a paralegal/legal assistant (11.1 percent), although many of the trainers also acted as a family member/friend of an HIV-positive individual (55.6 percent) and/or as a trainer (44.4 percent).

• All of the trainers had more than 51 hours of HIV training in the last three years, with over half (55.6 percent) of the trainers having more than 100 hours of training.

• Two-thirds of the trainers (66.7 percent) had served more than 51 individuals with HIV in the last three years, with the remaining one-third (33.3 percent) of trainers serving between 6 and 50 individuals.

Who Participated in the Training Sessions?

Information pertaining to the characteristics of trainees was documented using Module 53. These characteristics include general background information, professional characteristics, involvement with people with HIV/AIDS, and trainees’ comfort level in serving people with HIV or at risk for HIV.

What were the Background Characteristics of Trainees?

In total, 236 people received training from the Michigan Protection and Advocacy Service. Since each of these 236 individuals could have received more than one training but are only counted once, they are referred to as unduplicated. These 236 individuals attended between 1 and 17 training sessions each. A bimodal distribution best described the number of trainings each individual attended: most of the individuals (89.0 percent) attended either one or two training sessions, while a handful of individuals (7.6 percent) attended 16 or 17 training sessions. Those who attended one or two sessions primarily attending training sessions on "AIDS in the Law" or the "Community Advocate Training Program". Those who attended 16 or 17 training sessions participated in a special two-day training program, and were exposed to training sessions on topics such as "History of AIDS", "Death & Dying", "Estate Planning", "Home Testing", "Women & HIV", "Torts & HIV", "Crime, Jails & HIV", and "Activism".

There were a total of 604 attendees at Michigan Protection and Advocacy Service’s training sessions. Individuals could and did attend multiple trainings, as there were 236 unique individuals who attending the training sessions. Of these 236 individuals, 136 were female (57.6 percent), 94 were male (39.8 percent), and six did not indicate their gender (2.5 percent). The remainder of these statistics related to trainee characteristics are presented for males and females separately.

Age of Trainees:

The age of the trainees was identified for all of the males and all but four of the females (these four trainees did not indicate their age).

• Males ranged in age from 24 to 62 years old (M = 39.1 and sd = 9.9).

• Females ranged in age from 21 to 65 years old (M = 40.0 and sd = 10.3).

Ethnicity of Trainees:

A distribution of the ethnicity of trainees is presented in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Ethnicity of Trainees by Gender.

• The majority of trainees were Caucasian (78.7 percent of males, 83.8 percent of females).

• African-Americans accounted for 14.9 percent of male trainees and 11.0 percent of female trainees.

Sexual Orientation of Trainees:

Figure 6 gives the indicated sexual orientation of training participants.

Figure 6. Sexual Orientation of Trainees by Gender.

• On the whole, male and female trainees had markedly different sexual orientations.

• Male trainees were more commonly gay or lesbian (69.1 percent) than female trainees (11.8 percent).

• Female trainees, conversely, were more commonly heterosexual (77.2 percent) than male trainees (21.3 percent).

• This difference is statistically significant [x²(1,N=206)= 83.52, p<.0001].

What were the Professional Characteristics of Trainees?

Trainees were asked to describe several characteristics related to their professional experience. These characteristics included education level, number of years of professional experience, the trainees’ current position, and the type of organization at which the trainee works. The results are summarized on the next page.

Educational Level of Trainees:

Figure 7 provides the highest level of education achieved by the training participants.

Figure 7. Trainees’ Highest Level of Education by Gender.

• The majority of the trainees (86.1 percent of the males and 95.6 percent of the females) had some type of college degree.

• Slightly more males (37.2 percent) than females (24.3 percent) possessed an advanced degree.

• Over half of the females (57.4 percent) had a Bachelor’s degree.

Years of Professional Experience:

Figure 8 displays the years of professional experience held by the trainees.

Figure 8. Trainees’ Years of Professional Experience by Gender.

• For males, the number of years of experience ranged from 0 to 40 years (M = 12.6 and sd = 10.0).

• For females, the number of years of experience ranged from 1 to 35 years (M = 14.7 and sd = 8.6).

• Nearly two-thirds of the females (63.4 percent) and nearly half of the males (49.1 percent) had over 10 years of professional experience.

Primary Functional Role in Job:

Trainees also indicated their primary functional role in their job. 

• The most common functional role, including roughly half of the trainees (48.9 percent of the males and 58.8 percent of the females), was administration, supervision, or office support.

• A number of the trainees were also indirect care providers (20.2 percent of the males and 25.7 percent of the females).

• Nearly none of the trainees (1.1 percent of males and 0.0 percent of females) acted as direct care providers.

Type of Organization

Trainees also indicated the type of organization for which they worked.

• The two most common types of organizations included community-based organizations (25.5 percent of males and 24.3 percent of females) and government agencies (20.2 percent of males and 28.7 percent of females).

• Other types of organizations indicated were: community health centers (3.2 percent of males and 10.3 percent of females), hospitals (7.4 percent of males and 11.0 percent of females), private practice (6.4 percent of males and 3.7 percent of females), and higher educational settings (7.4 percent of males, 4.4 percent of females).

What are the Trainees’ HIV-related Experiences?

To describe trainee experiences related to HIV/AIDS and people infected by the disease, several types of questions were asked. Trainees were asked to indicate their HIV status, the number of hours of HIV-related education they have, their number of years of experience with people with HIV, the number of HIV/AIDS clients they currently serve, and their primary involvement with these individuals. Responses are summarized below.

HIV Status:

• As with sexual orientation, there was a marked difference in HIV status between males and females.

• Male trainees reported being HIV-positive more often than did female trainees (34.0 percent for males, 2.2 percent for females).

• Conversely, female trainees reported being HIV-negative more often than did male trainees (94.1 percent for females, 58.5 percent for males)

• This difference is statistically significant [x²(1,N=220)= 41.00, p<.0001].

Hours of HIV-related Education:

Figure 9 summarizes the number of hours of HIV/AIDS education/training that training participants indicated having in the past three years.

Figure 9. Number of Hours of Trainees’ HIV-related Education by Gender.

• About three-fourths of the training participants (79.7 percent of the males and 73.5 percent of the females) had over 10 hours of HIV-related education.

• The average (median) number of hours of HIV-related education was 21-30 hours for both males and females.

Years of Professional Experience with HIV-related Issues:

Figure 10 displays the years of experience with HIV-related issues that trainees indicated having at the time of their first training session.

Figure 10. Trainees’ Years of Experience with HIV-related issues by Gender.

• Male trainees indicated that they had between 0 and 10 years experience with HIV-related issues (M = 2.8, sd = 2.7).

• Female trainees indicated that they also had between 0 and 10 years experience with HIV-related issues (M = 3.3, sd = 2.8).

• Slightly more than one-third of the trainees had either no experience or one years’ experience with HIV-related issues (36.1 percent for males, 34.5 percent for females).

• Only a small percentage of the training participants (14.0 percent of the males and 19.0 percent of the females) had over 5 years of HIV-related experience.

Number of HIV Clients/Patients Currently Served:

Trainees also indicated the number of HIV clients/patients they had served in the year prior to the training session. Results are summarized in Figure 11.

Figure 11. Number of HIV Clients Served by Trainees in the Year Prior to Training by Gender.

• About half of the trainees (48.9 percent of the males and 47.0 percent of the females) served more than 6 clients with HIV in the year before the training session.

• A small number of the trainees (9.6 percent of the males and 2.2 percent of the females) served more than 50 clients in the year before the training session.

Primary Involvement with HIV-positive Individuals:

Trainees also indicated their primary involvement with HIV-positive individuals. Trainees were allowed to indicate multiple types of involvement. The results are summarized in Figure 12 below (only those types of involvement that appeared in more than 5 percent of trainee responses are included).

Figure 12. Trainees’ Primary Involvement with HIV-positive Individuals by Gender.

• The most common type of involvement with HIV-positive individuals for female trainees was as a case manager (32.4 percent).

• The most common types of involvement with HIV-positive individuals for male trainees were as a consumer/PWA (25.5 percent) or a family member/friend (24.5 percent).

• Other common types of involvement for females were nurse (19.1 percent), other social work (16.9 percent), family member/friend (14.7 percent), educator (12.5 percent), and attorney (9.6 percent).

• Other common types of involvement for males were case manager (19.1 percent), trainer (14.9 percent), other social work (11.7 percent), educator (11.7 percent), and attorney (10.6 percent).

A hierarchical cluster analysis was performed on the trainees’ involvement with HIV-positive individuals, to investigate the multiple roles being played by trainees. Figure 13 on the next page provides the dendogram resulting from the cluster analysis.

Figure 13. Cluster Analysis of Trainees’ Primary Involvement with HIV-positive Individuals.

• The strongest cluster of trainees’ primary involvement is between the roles of counselor, trainer, and educator; thus, trainees who were counselors also tended to be trainers and/or educators.

• Case managers did not typically act in multiple roles with HIV-positive individuals.

Why are the Trainees Participating in the Training Sessions?

Training participants also indicated the reason that they were participating in the training. Table 3 indicates the percentages of trainees who responded that they were participating in the training for the given reason.

Table 3

Reasons for Trainees’ Participation in Training

• Trainees were most commonly taking the training for the purpose of training others (54.3 percent of males and 60.3 percent of females).

• There is a clear difference between males and females on the variable which concerns whether the training will affect how the trainees personally access HIV services. More than one-third of the male trainees responded affirmatively (37.2 percent), while only a handful of female trainees (5.9 percent) responded affirmatively. This difference likely reflects the aforementioned higher rate of HIV-seropositivity in the male trainees; thus, the male trainees are more likely to personally access HIV services than the female trainees, who for the most part are HIV-seronegative.

Multiple linear regressions were performed to isolate potential relationships between background characteristics and the reasons trainees indicated for participation in the training sessions. The clients’ gender, age, race, sexual orientation, and education level were used as potential predictors.

• Background characteristics were related to whether clients indicated that they would use the training primarily to train others [R = .28, F(3,232) = 6.68, p < .001]. Female trainees, gay/lesbian & bisexual trainees, and trainees with higher levels of education were more likely to be attending the training primarily for the purpose of training other individuals.

• Background characteristics were also related to whether the clients indicated that they would likely use the training session to change how they personally accessed services [R = .79, F(3,232) = 129.04, p < .001]. It should be noted that the amount of variance predicted by these background characteristics is extremely high. As would be expected, trainees who were HIV-positive were more likely to indicate that the training session would change their personal access of services. Further, trainees with higher levels of education were less likely to indicate the training would change how they personally accessed services.

How Comfortable are Trainees in Serving People with HIV?

Trainees were asked to indicate their comfort level with 1) a person with HIV, 2) a person with AIDS, 3) a person with HIV/AIDS-related neuropsychiatric conditions, 4) a person with a chemical dependency, and 5) a person with a history of violence or criminal justice system (CJS) involvement. For each of these items, participants indicated their response on a six-point Likert-type scale, ranging from "very uncomfortable" to "very comfortable". Results for these five items are presented in Table 4.

Table 4

Self-Reported Comfort Level of Trainees in Providing Services to Clients

• The majority of trainees felt most comfortable providing services to people with HIV and people with AIDS; trainees rated their comfort level as comfortable or very comfortable in nearly all cases (91.5 percent to 95.6 percent).

• Over two-thirds of the trainees (70.2 percent to 85.1 percent) also felt comfortable or very comfortable providing services to people with HIV/AIDS-related neuropsychiatric conditions and people with chemical dependencies.

• However, only slightly more than half of the trainees (59.6 percent of males and 56.7 percent of females) felt comfortable or very comfortable providing services to people involved with violence.

Multiple linear regressions were again performed to investigate relationships between demographic characteristics of training participants and their comfort levels in providing services.

• Demographic variables were related to the trainees’ comfort levels with persons with HIV [R = .22, F(2,233) = 6.05, p < .01]. Gay/lesbian and bisexual trainees were more likely to indicate higher comfort levels with people with HIV. Interestingly, HIV-positive trainees indicated lower comfort levels with people with HIV. The results were nearly identical for comfort levels with persons with AIDS (R=.23) and persons with AIDS-related neuropsychiatric conditions (R=.33).

• Background characteristics were significantly related with comfort levels with persons with chemical dependency [R = .33, F(3,232) = 9.31, p < .001]. African-American trainees and more educated trainees were more likely to be comfortable with these clients, while HIV-positive clients were less likely to be comfortable with these clients.

• Finally, background characteristics were also related to trainee comfort levels with clients with a history of violence or criminal justice system involvement [R = .26, F(2,233) = 8.35, p < .001]. Specifically, younger trainees and more highly educated trainees were more likely to be comfortable with persons involved with the criminal justice system or who have a history of violence.

What were the Trainees’ Reactions to the Training Sessions?

Training participants were asked to rate items related to the value of the training session in Module 54. Four types of ratings were given: 1) difficulty of training, 2) trainer’s level of knowledge, 3) usefulness of training, and 4) overall quality of training. Responses along these dimensions are summarized below. Data were available from 507 separate training session ratings, representing 188 unique trainees. The correlations between trainer knowledge, training quality, and training usefulness were high, ranging from .48 to .61, and were all significant at the .01 level using two-tailed tests. The difficulty of training was uncorrelated with the training quality, training usefulness, or trainer knowledge (correlations ranged from .03 to .07). Multiple linear regressions were performed to investigate relationships with background variables, and are additionally summarized below. These regression analyses were completed on the 154 trainees who had recorded information on both the trainee characteristics module and the trainee evaluation module.

Trainer’s Level of Knowledge:

• Nearly all of the trainees (99.1 percent) judged the trainers to be very knowledgeable (45.0 percent) or expert (54.1 percent).

• Trainee background characteristics were related to these knowledge ratings [R = .23, F(2,151) = 4.35, p < .05]; gay, lesbian, and bisexual trainees tended to rate the trainer’s knowledge level higher, while more educated trainees rated the trainer’s knowledge as lower.

Difficulty of Training:

• Most of the participants (78.6 percent) felt that the difficulty of the training sessions was about right.

• Only 16.6 percent of the participants felt that the training sessions were difficult, and none of the participants felt the training sessions were very difficult.

• Trainee background characteristics were related to the difficulty rating [R = .34, F(2,151) = 9.84, p < .001]; more educated trainees tended to rate the difficulty of the training as lower.

Quality of Training:

• Nearly all of the training participants (98.4 percent) rated the quality of training as very good (32.3 percent) or excellent (66.1 percent).

• Trainee background characteristics were related to the difficulty rating [R = .18, F(1,152) = 4.79, p < .05]; gay, lesbian, and bisexual trainees were more likely to rate the quality of training as higher.

Usefulness of Training:

• Nearly all of the trainees (98.7 percent) indicated that the training was useful, with usefulness ratings ranging from good (13.7 percent) to very good (54.1 percent) to excellent (30.9 percent).

• Trainee background characteristics were related to the difficulty rating [R = .36, F(2,151) = 11.56, p < .001]; gay, lesbian, and bisexual trainees were more likely to rate the usefulness of the training as higher, and more educated trainees tended to rate the usefulness as lower.

In addition, the training session participants were asked if the training session was worth their time and effort and if they would recommend the training to others. Nearly all of the trainees responded that the training was worth their time (99.4 percent) and that they would recommend the training to others (98.4 percent).

Technical Assistance

In addition to training, the Michigan Protection and Advocacy Service provided technical assistance. Instances of technical assistance were documented using Module 5 (Technical Assistance Summary), which records the nature of each episode of technical assistance, and Module 6 (Technical Assistance Evaluation Form), which evaluates the quality of the technical assistance given. There were 22 episodes of technical assistance recorded using Module 5, and three evaluations of the technical assistance described in Module 6.

Who Received Technical Assistance?

Technical assistance was provided to 14 males and 8 females. The majority (59.1 percent) of the technical assistance recipients were social service providers. Other participants included other participant groups not specified (27.3 percent), advocates (18.2 percent), community service providers (13.6 percent), and case managers/case coordinators (9.6 percent).

Setting:

• The most common setting for the technical assistance was a community-based organization (54.5 percent).

• Other common settings included social service agencies (22.7 percent), health care environments (18.2 percent), and the workplace (13.6 percent).

Method of Technical Assistance:

• All of the technical assistance episodes (100.0 percent) involved the phone.

• Additionally, a number of the technical assistance episodes also utilized the mail (31.8 percent) and faxing (13.6 percent).

Length of Technical Assistance:

• The length of each episode of technical assistance ranged from 20 minutes to 160 minutes (m = 49.8 minutes, sd = 30.2 minutes).

What Issues were Addressed in the Technical Assistance?

Project staff recorded the topics that were covered in the technical assistance. As multiple issues could have been covered in each technical assistance, staff were allowed to indicate all topics that applied. Figure 14 displays common topics that were covered in the technical assistance.

Figure 14. Common Topics Discussed in Technical Assistance.

• Given the legal nature of the Michigan Protection and Advocacy Service, it is not surprising that the most commonly covered topics in the technical assistance episodes were legal/ethical/community issues (95.5 percent).

• Another topic covered in nearly all of the episodes was HIV sensitivity (90.9 percent).

• Other common topics covered were information dissemination (45.5 percent), gay/lesbian issues (36.4 percent), and workplace issues (22.7 percent).

What Type of Technical Assistance was Provided?

Project staff also recorded the types of technical assistance that were provided. The types of technical assistance were divided into six categories: (1) organizational development assistance - includes such items as staffing needs, staff supervision, and consumer involvement; (2) program development assistance - includes such items as scheduling client services, referrals to other agencies, and maintaining and evaluating the quality of service; (3) infrastructure development assistance - includes such items as linkages with other agencies, cooperative-shared programming, and community acceptance problems; (4) technology utilization assistance - includes such items as computer software and hardware, data management, and information dissemination; (5) resource development - includes such items as grant writing, fund-raising, and human resources; (6) issues of cultural appropriateness, sensitivity, and access - includes such items as language appropriateness, staff sensitivity issues, and physical access of facility. Figure 15 gives the percentage of technical assistance episodes in which each type of technical assistance was provided.

Figure 15. Types of Technical Assistance Provided.

• The most prevalent form of technical assistance that was provided was program development assistance, occurring in 72.5 percent of technical assistance episodes. 

• Infrastructure development assistance (40.9 percent) and organizational development assistance (18.2 percent) were also common types of technical assistance provided.

Impact of the Technical Assistance:

Staff also identified the issues that the technical assistance impacted. Figure 16 portrays the types of impact that the technical assistance episodes would have.

Figure 16. Impact of Technical Assistance.

• The two most common types of impact were the facilitation of information dissemination (72.7 percent) and increasing HIV/AIDS knowledge (72.7 percent).

• Increasing service knowledge was also an impact for half of the technical assistance episodes (50.0 percent).

Other Facts About the Technical Assistance:

• In a handful of cases, the technical assistance led to the provision of articles (18.2 percent), directories/service provider lists (18.2 percent), and/or technical manuals (18.2 percent) to the technical assistance participants.

• In the majority of the episodes, the purpose of the technical assistance was client advocacy (81.8 percent).

• Dissemination (13.6 percent) and policy advocacy (9.1 percent) also were purposes of technical assistance.

To What Degree Do People Receiving Technical Assistance Find it Useful?

The three participants who provided an evaluation of technical assistance in Module 6 all rated the episode very highly. All participants (100.0 percent) rated the quality and usefulness of the technical assistance as excellent and the scope and depth of the technical assistance as "about right". Further, all participants (100.0 percent) felt the technical assistance was worth their time and effort and that they would recommend a similar type of technical assistance to others.

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