National Coalition of STD Directors

In July 2005, the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs (AMCHP), National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD), National Coalition of STD Directors (NCSD), and The Society of State Directors of Health, Physical Education and Recreation (SSDHPER) collaborated to offer a regional meeting with the goal of strengthening communication and collaboration between State Departments of Education and Health to support and improve HIV, STD, unintended and teen pregnancy prevention in schools.

With this overall goal in mind, a two-day meeting was designed to bring together state teams of health and education agency staff working on HIV, STD, unintended and teen pregnancy prevention programs in schools to allow them to:

• Articulate a shared vision for HIV, STD, unintended and teen pregnancy prevention programs in schools;
• Describe the assets of each program within their state;
• Identify challenges associated with achieving the shared vision; and,
• Name collaborative strategies for overcoming these challenges.

States represented at the meeting included: Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. State teams varied based on state need and structure, but state teams representatives included: 􀂃 State HIV and/or health education directors in education agencies;

• State HIV/AIDS Directors in health agencies;
• State STD Directors in health agencies;
• State adolescent health coordinators in health agencies; and

As the final step in this two-day process, state teams created a state-specific action plan for enhancing collaboration among their programs. During the meeting, the national partners made a commitment to the participating state teams to engage them in a structured follow-up and evaluation process to support the implementation of state action plans.