Deborah A. McGill, DrPH¹, Antigone Hodgins², Andrea Zombeck¹, and Barney Singer, PhD³. (1) Statistics and Public Health Research Division, Constella Health Sciences, 2605 Meridian Parkway, Durham, NC 27713, 919-313-7577, deborahmcgill@earthlink.net, (2) CAEAR Coalition Foundation, 1534 16th Street, NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20036, (3) AED Center for Social Marketing and Behavior Change, 1825 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20009

Consultants are frequently used by programs to deliver technical assistance. Results from an HIV/AIDS technical assistance (TA) project designed to reach faith and community based organizations (F/CBO) will be presented. Organizations who applied were asked to describe characteristics they wanted in a consultant. This resulted in open ended responses which were analyzed overall and by group (FBO/CBO). Results indicated that comments fell into five categories: personal characteristics, technical expertise, specific population expertise, regional proximity, and previous experience working with F/CBO’s. Consultants who were assigned based on these characteristics were given a web-based survey post TA to assess their perceptions about the TA and their match with what the organization requested. Additionally, organizations were asked to assess the match and satisfaction with the consultant. The findings helped reconstruct assessment questions and pairing of organizations with a consultant for the following program year.

Learning Objectives: By the end of the session the participant will be able to

• Give three examples of consultant characteristics that are important to these targeted groups and list at least one difference between CBO/FBO requests.
• List three results from the consultant and organizational surveys on TA satisfaction and matching of consultant.
• Describe at least two changes made to the program based on these results.

Keywords: Community Health Centers, Needs Assessment

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.