Transitions: Linkages From Jail To Community

August 10, 2016 updated by: Yale University

Transitions: Linkages From Jail to Community

TRANSITIONS, a novel jail-release program for People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA), will use evidence-based interventions and adapt them to create a comprehensive transitional program in Waterbury and New Haven County, Connecticut. Evidence-based interventions will include, but not be limited to, enhanced rapid HIV testing within the New Haven Community Correctional Center (NHCCC, local jail), intensive case management, continuity of buprenorphine treatment from the jail to the community setting and a novel Money Management (MM) program.

The HIV in Prisons Program and the Community Health Care Van (CHCV) at the Yale University AIDS Program, in collaboration with the Connecticut Department of Correction and the Waterbury Hospital Infectious Diseases Clinic, propose to expand the availability of opiate substitution treatment and to enhance clinical and social services for PLWHA, who are transitioning from the jail to the community setting.

As part of Transitions, we will develop a model Money Management program that we have used in community settings to improve health outcomes for socially and medically marginalized populations and adapt it for a jail-release program. The Transitions program will incorporate these elements into a combined intervention and will result in a clinical trial to compare the additional contribution of a money management program.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

TRANSITIONS, a novel jail-release program for People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA), will use evidence-based interventions and adapt them to create a comprehensive transitional program in New Haven County, Connecticut. Evidence-based interventions will include, but not be limited to, enhanced rapid HIV testing within the New Haven Community Correctional Center (NHCCC, local jail), intensive case management, continuity of buprenorphine treatment from the jail to the community setting and a novel Money Management (MM) program that is predicated on contingency management and has been used to reduce recidivism to jail, homelessness, mental and social instability and improve social functioning. Individuals to be targeted for rapid HIV testing will be those who enter the facility with substance use disorder and mental illness. All individuals who are either diagnosed with the enhanced HIV testing or who self-identify as being HIV+ will be evaluated by the Infectious Diseases Contact Nurse (IDCN) who will work in collaboration with the Referrals Coordinator (RC). The IDCN will coordinate the medical care of the detainee within the correctional setting while the Referrals Coordinator will begin the process of coordinating the care upon release and work with the Intensive Case Managers in New Haven and Waterbury upon release.

The HIV in Prisons Program and the Community Health Care Van (CHCV) at the Yale University AIDS Program, in collaboration with the Connecticut Department of Correction and the Waterbury Hospital Infectious Diseases Clinic, propose to expand the availability of opiate substitution treatment and to enhance clinical and social services for PLWHA, who are transitioning from the jail to the community setting in New Haven county. This work builds on our previous work to enhance HIV testing in prisons and jails, , , to provide comprehensive HIV services within prisons and jails, , to implement the country's first buprenorphine treatment program in jails, to establish effective prison-released programs for sentenced prisoners, to establish buprenorphine treatment programs in mobile outreach and in HIV clinical care settings in the community, , and to establish adherence programs for PLWHA in community settings. Each of these programs and milestones have been evidence-based, rigorously studied and have resulted in replication in many parts of the country. As part of Transitions, we will develop a model Money Management program that we have used in community settings to improve health outcomes for socially and medically marginalized populations and adapt it for a jail-release program. The Transitions program will incorporate these elements into a combined intervention and will result in a clinical trial to compare the additional contribution of a money management program. The target population will include drug users who are either being released from or who have recently been released from prison or jail. Individuals will be fully assessed by a jail-based Referrals Coordinator and an intensive case manager (ICM) and a treatment plan organized. Screening and referral will take place either prior to release from the correctional setting or after release to the New Haven or Waterbury communities. HIV+ jail inmates who are returning to New Haven and Waterbury will be eligible for this study. As part of a randomized controlled trial, a subset of these will be randomized 2:1 to a Money Management program that will be adapted for our population. Direct services provided by Transitions will include enhanced rapid HIV testing within the jail setting, continuity of buprenorphine treatment from the correctional system to the community setting, intensive case management provided as modified Assertive Community Treatment and provision of a Money Management service. The strengths of this proposal are the:

  • Addressing unmet medical, drug treatment, case management needs in New Haven county - these are statewide priority areas for PLWHA according to our state needs assessment;
  • Collective experience and expertise in the collaboration between the Yale University HIV in Prisons Program, the CHCV, the Connecticut Department of Correction, the Waterbury Hospital ID Clinic, and a number of collaborating institutions within New Haven County;
  • Novelty of introducing an approved treatment modality for opiate dependence (buprenorphine), that to date, has not been fully expanded to meet the needs of PLWHA;
  • Novelty of prescribing opiate substitution therapy for released prisoners with DSM-IV criteria for opioid dependence BEFORE relapse to drug use;
  • Novelty that the Connecticut Department of Correction is the first and most comprehensive system to provide buprenorphine for supervised opiate withdrawal (detox) for opioid dependent patients, thus allowing for its prescription as part of a relapse prevention program from prison and/or jail;
  • Benefit of having an integrated correctional system that means that the jails and prisons are one system in Connecticut and thus able to track inmates throughout both the jail and prison system;
  • Novelty of applying an evidence-based Money Manager program to released prisoners, most of whom have significant problems with substance abuse, mental illness and homelessness;
  • Use of evidence-based interventions, including elements of buprenorphine maintenance treatment, intensive case management teams and money management strategies to retain released jail detainees with multiple medical and social co-morbidities.

TRANSITIONS is a novel demonstration program for managing HIV+ clients as they transition from the jail to the community setting in New Haven County, Connecticut. TRANSITIONS builds on our previous experience with developing and evaluating novel projects: 1) Project TLC (Kaiser Family Foundation, Altice, PI), the country's first transitional case management program for sentenced prisoners; 2) Project BEST (SAMHSA, Altice, PI), the country's first buprenorphine induction and stabilization program administered through a mobile health care program; and 3) and Project BELIEVE (HRSA, Altice, PI), one of ten SPNS projects integrating buprenorphine into HIV clinical care settings. Dr. Altice is also the PI for Project PLUS, two federally funded studies to develop and test pre-release (CDC, Altice, PI) and post-release (NIDA, Altice, PI) risk reduction interventions for HIV+ prisoners. The target population includes HIV+ jail detainees from New Haven County who are either being released from or who have recently been released from jail. Prison-release programs where sufficient time to plan for discharge have demonstrated significant success, however guidance for jail-release programs is urgently needed. This jail population desperately needs integrated services because of the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS, mental illness and recurrent homelessness that this incredibly vulnerable population faces as it attempts to reintegrate into the community.

Central to TRANSITIONS, we propose to develop and integrate effective, evidence-based interventions that include the following elements: 1) intensive case management (ICM) which is community-based outreach that employs feature of assertive community treatment; 2) opiate substitution therapy, primarily in the form of buprenorphine maintenance therapy; 3) enhanced communication linkages between the jail and the community. Eligible clients will include those who are HIV+ and who are either pre-release or who were released within the past 30 days. All eligible patients will receive these core elements. All Transitions clients will then be randomized 2:1 to receive additional Money Management (MM) services or no additional services. Money Management services, whose principles are predicated on contingency management, have been demonstrated to stabilize patients through improved social functioning, adherence to care, and decreased homelessness and substance misuse among patients with substance use disorder and severe mental illness.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

127

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Connecticut
      • New Haven, Connecticut, United States, 06510
        • Yale Clinical Research
      • Waterbury, Connecticut, United States, 06708
        • Waterbury Hosp ID Clinic

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • HIV Seropositive
  • 18 years of age or older
  • male and female
  • incarcerated but not sentenced inmates
  • releasing to New Haven area
  • releasing to Waterbury area
  • within 30 days post release from jail

Exclusion Criteria:

Not meeting inclusion criteria

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Supportive Care
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Other: Behavioral counseling
Behavioral: Intensive Case Management
Transitions involves the integration of evidence-based interventions, intensive case management that incorporates outreach elements similar to assertive community treatment (ACT). Intensive case management goes beyond the tenets of case management and incorporates community outreach. This model of case management has its roots in assertive community treatment (ACT) and has demonstrated a 37% greater reduction in homelessness and a 26% greater improvement in psychiatric symptom severity compared with standard case management treatments. As such, intensive case management is likely to result in important outcomes for the target population, is evidence-based and has been validated in prison-release programs.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Substance use outcomes measured by self-report
Time Frame: weekly reporting
weekly reporting
Urine toxicology results
Time Frame: weekly report
weekly report

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Yale University

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

September 1, 2008

Primary Completion (Actual)

August 1, 2012

Study Completion (Actual)

August 1, 2013

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

February 10, 2009

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

February 10, 2009

First Posted (Estimate)

February 11, 2009

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

August 12, 2016

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 10, 2016

Last Verified

August 1, 2016

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 0711003262
  • H97HA08541

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

Clinical Trials on HIV Infections

Clinical Trials on Intensive Case Management

Search Similar Trials

Sponsors and Collaborators

Medical Conditions

Drug Interventions

CROs by country

CROs in Cameroon

Conditions

Rare Diseases

Drug Interventions

Dietary Supplements

Sponsor/Collaborators

Locations

3
Subscribe