Building partnerships for prevention: Approaches to collaboration in the development of education programs in correctional settings

While the number of incarcerated men and women infected with HIV and HCV have stabilized within the United States over the last decade, stigma and misunderstanding of disease etiology continues to contribute to discrimination and may, over time, reverse this trend, increasing rates of both diseases. The “Healthy at Re-Entry” program was designed as collaboration between the Indiana State Department of Health Division of HIV/STD/Viral Hepatitis, Indiana State Department of Corrections, and Step-Up, Inc., an Indianapolis, Indiana based HIV prevention education community based organization, with the intention of providing integrated HIV, STD, viral hepatitis, and TB education and healthy decision planning and implementation to incarcerated men, 2 years prior to release from state correctional facilities. The program was designed by program planners to apply the Transtheoretical Model of Change and Health Belief Model to the development and enforcement of healthy sexual relationships with ones self and their partner(s). The program consists of 7, 2 hour sessions completed within re-entry oriented facilities. During the fourth session, the partners of participants are given the option of joining the session to both provide reinforcement of program objectives and to extend the educational component to a wider audience. Participants in the program report increased knowledge and understanding of associated disease etiology and increased comfort engaging in conversations they characterize as, “difficult”. The program serves as a model of collaboration between state health departments, state prison systems, and community based organization in the provision of health information to incarcerated individuals, their partners, and families.