Developing services for substance-abusing HIV-positive youth with mental health disorders

Models of program development have primarily focused on the internal organi zational processes needed to plan, implement, and evaluate new service prog rams. However creating an external demand for new programs by policy makers , administrative bureaucracies, public health officials, and funders is cri tical to establishing new programs. A series of deaths of seropositive yout h and an absence of local service settings with staff trained to address th e needs of youth living with HIV provided the impetus for Larkin Street You th Center In particular; the agency had to overcome stigma associated with having both substance use and mental health disorders to establish service programs to recruit and mobilize staff within the agency and the local comm unity and to establish a comprehensive housing program for symptomatic HIV- infected adolescents. This article examines how a residential assisted care facility for HIV-seropositive adolescents was established using organizati onal strategic planning processes, problem solving, and social marketing fr ameworks.