The Family Ties Project disseminates information to clients, the District provider community and to a national audience of HIV service providers. This year Family Ties continued to distribute its 20-page booklet Facing the Future: An Introduction to Life Planning for Parents and Caregivers. Directed toward the client audience, the booklet has been widely disseminated to agencies having contact with the client community.
2 new publications were completed this year. Group Work with HIV/AIDS Affected Children, Adolescents and Adults is curricula for group leaders to use with support groups. Using an attractive and readable format, it is divided into sections for 8 types of groups, and is based upon the experience of Pediatric Care, Inc. staff in working with Family Ties Project clients. The sections parallel the groups offered to clients:
For HIV-affected children 8 to 12:
For HIV-affected children and youth 1014:
For HIV-infected children 915:
For HIV-infected parents and caregivers:
For nonparental caregivers:
The guide was advertised through monthly fax newsletters, the Web site and by postcards distributed at national and local conferences. The guide was posted to the project Web site to make it available free of charge to a broad audience. As of September 30, 2001, it was one of the most frequently viewed pages, having been viewed 429 times, which accounted for over 10% of total page viewing.
The second publication completed is the 80-page Family Ties Project Final Report: 19962000, which describes project activities and outcomes, including quantitative data on clients and service utilization, over the life of the project. The report is illustrated with the art of children undergoing art therapy at Pediatric Care Inc., a project subcontractor. Also included is a section on lessons learned based upon qualitative evaluation data.
The report was distributed in hard copy to a small number of agencies and was posted to the project Web site. Case management agencies, other District HIV and social services providers, policy makers and AIA grantees were notified of the availability of the report through the project newsletter, conferences and email.
From it earliest stages, Family Ties Project staff, subcontractors and collaborators have been encouraged to present papers at professional conferences, perhaps a significant factor in retention and development of staff. This year, presentations were made at 4 national meetings and conferences. 4 of the 5 abstracts submitted for consideration of presentations at conferences were accepted. Several of the presentations included subcontractor staff. (See Figure 13 for the presentation topics and audiences.) Additionally, the project director was asked to serve on the Technical Expert Group on Future Care and Custody Planning convened by the Abandoned Infants Assistance Resource Center at the University of California Berkeley to identify and promote best practices on permanency planning for HIV/AIDS-affected families and to promote the enactment of standby guardianship
The Family Ties Project launched a dedicated Web site in February 2001. Prior to that time, the project had published information on the site of its parent organization, the Consortium for Child Welfare. Through the end of the fiscal year, September 30, 2001, the site received over 1000 visits. The number of visits per month ranged from 40 in March to 260 in September. The increase in visits per month was not linear. The total number of page views was 4286, and hits totaled 9368.
Family Ties Project contracted to design and construct the
site. Since its launching, the mean length of visit to the site
was less than 4 minutes
(231 seconds), suggesting that the typical user is not reviewing
the available documents extensively. However, measures of central
tendency are of limited use in reaching conclusions about viewers:
As staff, subcontractors and the service community become more
familiar with using the site, traffic is expected to increase.
Staff will be monitoring usage over time to identify changes in
patterns of use.
The project director has encouraged project partners, subcontractors and the AIDS services community to use the Web site to obtain and share information about on-going activities. Throughout the year, staff has increasingly used the site to disseminate information about training sessions, informal brown bag discussions, conferences and continuing education opportunities, new publications and other resources. Although the biweekly newsletter continues to be faxed to those who request it, notification of its availability is distributed by email, with the newsletter itself then posted to the Web site. Announcements of meetings and trainings are also posted and interested persons can enroll on line.
In addition to dissemination of information to a broad audience, the Web site is used to make enrollment easier and most efficient for case managers. Since July 2001, various forms used by Family Ties Project subcontractors' staff and referring case managers have been available on-line for downloading. The forms include:
According to project staff, internet access to project forms has enhanced efficiency. There is now 24/7 availability of forms. Case managers have access to the current form, thereby reducing problems that occur with use of outdated forms and materials. Case managers can be referred to the Web site, which is time efficient for both project and agency staff.
Considering the entire time period, February through September, the web pages most frequently viewed are shown below:
Family Ties Project Web Site Utilization |
||
most frequently viewed pages |
number |
percent of total pages viewed |
| Home page | 841 | 19.6% |
| Final report | 773 | 18.0% |
| Newsletters | 608 | 14.2% |
| Group Curriculum | 429 | 10.2% |
| Stand by guardianship | 360 | 8.4% |
However, since pages were posted at different times throughout the year, the frequency of viewing would appear to be primarily affected by the length of time these various pages were available. The project forms, for example, were first published in July while the final report and newsletters have been available since February 2001. Additionally, 41 persons are on the moderated forum listserv, which is used primarily by the project director to disseminate project related information. Other subscribers rarely use it to disseminate announcements or other information.