1. ACAP DATA January 13, 2009 Anita Fervaha and Suzanne Hindmarch
I’ll start with a brief overview of the AIDS Community Action Program, or ACAP, which will be familiar to most of you.
ACAP is a part of the Federal Initiative to Address HIV/AIDS in Canada (FI) and is delivered regionally across Canada through the PHAC regional offices. For accountability purposes, ACAP regional offices are required to collect data on the projects and programs we fund. We’ll talk more about what activities and outcomes we are responsible for reporting in a moment.
There are 2 streams of ACAP funding:
Operational funding is specifically for ASOs, and is multi-year funding for core programming, key positions within an organization, and overhead and administrative costs.
Time-Limited funding helps community-based organizations working on HIV/AIDS to respond to emerging needs by providing dedicated funds for short-term, self-contained initiatives. Sixteen time-limited projects began in 2006 and ended on March 31, Information on these
projects was included in the View from the Front Lines report, so the data are not provided in this report. A new cycle of time-limited
funding began in March 2008: four 12-month projects, which will end March 31, 2009,were funded. Their data will be captured in the
This means that the number of ACAP projects in this View From the Frontlines report is smaller than in previous years. That’s why you’ll see what looks like a drop in numbers in a lot of the slides.
January 13, 2009
Anita Fervaha and Suzanne Hindmarch
AIDS Community Action Program, Public Health Agency of Canada

2. OCHART LOGIC MODEL Objectives Activities Deliverables/Outputs
Impact/Outcomes
Target Populations/Needs
ACAP Priority
In OCHART, all ACAP funded projects and programs complete an online Logic Model which is a map of the work you’ll do each fiscal year.
In the logic model, you identify your objectives, activities, outputs (deliverables), outcomes, your target populations, and the ACAP priority your work meets.
The logic model is a tool that helps you to explain what you hope to achieve, and how you will achieve it. It helps you to determine what resources you’ll need, and to track your progress in achieving the goals you’ve set.

3. ACAP LOGIC MODEL Outlines the goals of the funding program
Identifies key activities and outputs of ACAP
Explains the short, intermediate and long term outcomes that should result from activities and outputs
You have logic models for your projects. ACAP, as a funding program, also has a logic model that outlines the goals of the program as a whole, and explains what activities, outputs and outcomes will help us achieve these goals. The ACAP data that you enter into OCHART helps us to evaluate ACAP, and measure our progress in achieving the goals of the program. Now I’m going to go through the ACAP logic model, so that you can see how the data you report fits into the overall evaluation of ACAP. Remember that the activities and outcomes in this logic model are for the fund as a whole – we do not expect every individual project to do every single one of these things. But we hope that this will help you to see how your work fits into the activities and goals of the ACAP funding program.

4. ACAP Goals Prevent the acquisition and transmission of new infections.
Slow the progression of the disease and improve quality of life.
3. Reduce the social and economic impact of HIV/AIDS.
ACAP has three overarching goals: to prevent the acquisition and transmission of HIV; to slow the progression of the disease and improve quality of life; and to reduce the social and economic impact of HIV.

5. ACAP Funding Approaches
Creating Supportive Environments
Health Promotion for People Living With HIV/AIDS
Prevention Initiatives
Strengthening Community-based Organizations
ACAP has identified four different funding approaches or strategies that will help us meet these goals. Every ACAP project is funded under one of these approaches.
Creating Supportive Environments: This funding approach supports initiatives that work to reduce or eliminate social barriers that prevent persons living with HIV or AIDS, those at risk, and those affected, from accessing health care and/or social services. Activities under this funding approach help to reduce discrimination, poverty, illiteracy, homophobia, and the fear and stigma associated with HIV/AIDS-related issues.
Health Promotion for People Living With HIV/AIDS: Activities that contribute to this funding approach increase the capacity of people living with HIV to prevent the spread of HIV and to manage their condition. Examples of this work are activities that improve access to services, treatment, care, and social support. This approach also supports activities that reduce barriers that may be present due to HIV status, sexual orientation, gender, or social, cultural, or economic circumstances.
Prevention Initiatives: This funding approach supports community-based prevention initiatives targeted at populations that are especially vulnerable to HIV infection, including Aboriginal people, ethnocultural groups, injection drug users and their partners, gay youth, marginalized women, men who have sex with men, prison populations, and street-involved youth.
.Strengthening Community-based Organizations: Activities that support increasing the skills and abilities of people who work at all levels of the community-based AIDS movement are included in this funding approach.

6. ACAP Logic Model part 1 GOALS GOALS health promotion for PHAs
1. Prevent acquisition and transmission of new infections
2. Slow progression of the disease & improve quality of life
3. Reduce the social & economic costs of HIV
GOALS
GOALS
health promotion for PHAs
creating supportive environments
ACTIVITIES
strengthening CBOs
prevention
The logic model is quite large, so we’ve spread it over 3 slides. But all the pieces fit together into one large model. The first slide shows the goals, activities and outputs of the program.
As you’ll see, the logic model starts with the overall goals of the fund. The activities outlined in the overall ACAP logic model, which will help us to reach these goals, are aligned with the four ACAP funding approaches.
All of the activities (funding approaches) contribute to four key outputs:
Presentations, advice/recommendations, plans, policies/guidelines: This output is generated through the activities funded by the approaches of Prevention, Health Promotion, and Creating Supportive Environments. It includes presentations, plans, policies, and guidelines that support prevention efforts and influence policies that reduce barriers and discrimination faced by people living with HIV/AIDS as well as other vulnerable populations.
2. Partnerships: All of the funding approaches contribute to the development and maintenance of broad based partnerships.
3. Promotion and prevention products and approaches: These outputs are, for the most part, generated through the activities funded by the approaches of Prevention and Health Promotion for People Living With HIV/AIDS. These outputs can include workshops, social support activities, and a range of promotion and prevention materials.
4. Organizational development, products, and approaches: This output is generated through the Strengthening Community-based Organizations approach and includes a range of initiatives and products that are intended to enhance internal organization – for example, new case management models.
Presentations, advice, recommendations, plans, policies/guidelines
Partnerships
Promotion & prevention activities, products, approaches
Organizational development products & approaches
OUTPUTS

7. ACAP Logic Model part 2
Presentations, advice, recommendations, plans, policies/guidelines
Partnerships
Promotion & prevention activities, products, approaches
Organizational development products & approaches
OUTPUTS
OUTPUTS
Improved attitudes and behaviours towards HIV and people living with HIV
increased awareness,knowledge and skills related to HIV prevention and living with HIV
increased awareness and knowledge of social factors and barriers
increased and improved collaboration and networking
increased capacity, knowledge and skills of front-line service providers
SHORT TERM OUTCOMES
Outputs are tangible goods or services produced. These tangible items are a means to an end. That end is the desired change, or outcome, that will be achieved through activities and outputs.
There are three levels of outcomes in the ACAP logic model. They are described according to their sequence in time and reach. Short-term outcomes, seen on this slide, generally occur first, are expected within the first one-to-three years of a funding program, and are more directly affected by the activities funded within the four approaches.
In general, the work of ACAP-funded initiatives results in outputs and, in some cases, short-term outcomes. Outcomes become more complex to measure as we moves down the logic model, as contributions become more dependent on the work of other programs and sectors.
The short-term outcomes that ACAP directly contributes to are:
1. Increased and improved collaboration and networking: All key activities are expected to contribute to the development of partnerships, and these contribute to collaborative initiatives.
2. Increased awareness, knowledge, and skills related to HIV prevention and living with HIV/AIDS: Through the activities in the Prevention and Health Promotion funding streams, people living with HIV as well as other vulnerable populations learn more about preventing HIV transmission. Also, those living with HIV/AIDS learn more about managing the disease.
3. Increased awareness and knowledge of social factors and barriers: Through the activities in the Creating Supportive Environments funding stream, individuals, including service providers and the general public, are made more knowledgeable and aware of the social and economic factors like income, housing, and addictions, that create barriers for people living with HIV/AIDS and increase risk for other vulnerable populations.
4. Increased capacity (knowledge and skills) of front-line service providers: Activities in the Strengthening Community-based Organizations funding stream aim to increase the capacity of organizations for planning and evaluation and to increase the knowledge and skills of people working in community-based organization.
5. Improved attitudes and behaviours toward HIV/AIDS and people living with HIV/AIDS: Activities funded through the Creating Supportive Environments stream contribute in the long term to reducing the stigma and discrimination associated with the disease.

8. ACAP Logic Model part 3 Increased practice of healthy behaviours
Improved access to quality HIV/AIDS prevention, diagnosis, care, treatment and support
Strengthened pan-Canadian response to HIV/AIDS
INTERMEDIATE OUTCOMES
Improved health status of people living with or vulnerable to HIV
Reduction of the social and economic costs of HIV/AIDS to Canadians (eg. reduced stigma and discrimination)
Intermediate and long-term outcomes require broader participation, take more time to achieve, and are affected by many factors beyond the control of individual projects and funding bodies. ACAP initiatives can make only a contribution, along with other community and government initiatives, to achieving these outcomes.
These outcomes are:
Intermediate Outcomes (three-to-seven years)
1. Increased practice of healthy behaviours
Improved access to quality HIV/AIDS prevention, diagnoses, care, treatment, and support
3. Strengthened pan-Canadian response to HIV/AIDS
Long-term Outcomes (seven-to-10 years)
1. Improved health status of persons living with/or vulnerable to HIV
Reduction of the social and economic costs of HIV/AIDS to Canadians (e.g., reduced stigma and discrimination)
LONG TERM OUTCOMES 8

9. ACAP IN VIEW FROM THE FRONT LINES REPORT
Next is an overview of the information that your ACAP funded projects and programs reported in your logic models. These are just some of the highlights from the report. PHAC uses this data, along with data from other ACAP projects across the country, to assess how well we are meeting the goals in our logic model. The charts in this section are on pages 109 through 125 of the report.

10. This slide is on page 109 of the report.
ACAP-funded organizations gave 29% more presentations in compared to – but to fewer participants. It is encouraging to see that ACAP-funded organizations were able to increase the number of presentations because the total number of presentations reported to OCHART was lower this year. This means that ACAP funding accounted for a larger proportion of presentations -- 18% in or almost 1 in 5 presentations compared to 14% in the previous year.
Education presentations are a key output in the ACAP logic model, so it’s encouraging to see ACAP-funded projects making such a strong contribution in this area.

11. This slide is on page 110.
Overall ACAP-funded organizations exceeded their logic model targets for education presentations and community development meetings. Organizations also reported making efforts to overcome barriers that keep people from attending education programs, such as providing transportation or changing the way that presentations are delivered. For example, when bar owners did not attend a community development meeting, one organization made one-to-one visits to each bar.
Again, it’s great to see ACAP-funded projects making a strong contribution to this key output from the ACAP logic model.

12. This slide is on page 112.
ACAP-funded organizations reported fewer outreach contacts this year – however – because there were 24 programs reporting in 05-06, 16 in 06/07 and 14 in 07/08, the average number of contacts per agency remained relatively consistent, and was higher in than in Again, because prevention activities are a key output for ACAP, it’s great to see that ACAP projects are maintaining this level of outreach.

13. This chart is on page 113.
This chart shows the location for outreach contacts. Organizations are doing a good job of maintaining high levels of party, bar and street outreach. In total, organizations exceeded their planned number of outreach contacts by 72%.

14. This slide is on page 114
ACAP-funded organizations focused mainly on advertising, brochures and posters to raise awareness. The high number in paid advertising was mainly due to one organization that reported circulation numbers for a publication rather than the number of ads. This is a reporting issue that was addressed in OCHART.
Awareness activities contribute to several of the ACAP short term outcomes, including increased knowledge, awareness, and skills, and increased capacity of service providers.

15. This slide is on page 116.
Nine programs received ACAP funding to support phone and Internet outreach. The drop in contacts was due to a combination of more accurate reporting as well as staff and volunteer shortages. Despite the drop, only three of the nine programs fell short of their targets for phone and Internet outreach, and the group as a whole exceeded total targets by about one-third.

16. This slide is on page 119.
The number of support group sessions more than doubled, while the number of counselling sessions remained constant and the number of skills training workshops decreased. Although fewer programs were funded for these services, the number of sessions actually increased compared to the previous year. ACAP funding accounted for 7% of all support groups over the year, and 53% of the support groups for populations at risk.
These support services contribute to the prevention, health promotion, and creating supportive environments activities in the ACAP logic model.

17. This slide is on page 121.
The number of volunteers and the number of volunteer hours increased in ACAP funded programs continue to maintain a solid core of active volunteers while continuing to attract new ones. Volunteers contribute to all of the activities, outputs and outcomes in the logic model, and as you know, programming would not be successful without them.

18. This slide is on page 122.
This figure illustrates the impact of ACAP funding on total volunteer activities reported through OCHART. ACAP-funded programs recruited over one-quarter of all new volunteers.

19. This slide is on page 124.
ACAP data is consistent with overall OCHART data on the amount of time that volunteers devote to certain activities. Volunteers involved with practical support give significantly more hours than those involved in fundraising and education. This means that ACAP volunteers are making a very strong contribution to two key activities in the ACAP logic model: health promotion and the creation of supportive environments.

20. This slide is on page 125.
This figure is particularly interesting … because we looked at the impact of having a funded volunteer coordinator. During , ACAP funded four volunteer coordinators, and the programs that had coordinators had significantly more volunteers and more volunteer activity. This may seem like common sense, but it’s useful to have the data that shows this kind of investment makes a difference.

21. CONCLUSIONS
ACAP-funded projects in Ontario are making a significant contribution to the key activities, outputs and outcomes identified in the ACAP logic model.
For more information about ACAP evaluation, please contact your PHAC program consultant.
So as you can see, the data you report in OCHART shows that ACAP projects are making an important contribution to the activities, outputs and outcomes in the ACAP logic model. Thanks again for your commitment to reporting this data – and more importantly, for the great work you’re doing to support the community.
If you’d like a copy of the ACAP logic model and evaluation framework, or have other questions about ACAP evaluation, please contact your ACAP program consultant. 21