Media Release

For: Immediate Release
Date: January 15, 2008

Health Department Presents Community Partnership Award To Leah Holmes, Director of Project Bridge

Today the Rhode Island Department of Health (HEALTH) presented Leah Holmes, Director of Project Bridge with a Community Partnership Award. HEALTH’s Community Partnership Award is presented to individuals and groups who engage in exceptional community efforts that support the mission of the Health Department.

Project Bridge, which is affiliated with the Miriam Hospital, is a nationally recognized program for HIV-positive ex-offendors. A significant concern related to disenfranchised populations with HIV is access to, and maintenance of, care. Funded by HEALTH’s Office of HIV/AIDS & Viral Hepatitis, Project Bridge implements an 18-month intervention that focuses on retaining clients in health care and linking them with additional services needed to build a life outside incarceration.  The program provides medical care, housing referrals, and HIV education and prevention services, focusing heavily on substance abuse and mental health disorders.

Project Bridge uses a cognitive behavior model, in which a caseworker and an outreach worker demonstrate the behavior needed to successfully seek those services. “Then, little by little, we start giving the client more control to do it themselves,” says Leah Holmes, Director of Project Bridge. “And at the end, they are doing it all on their own.”  This approach pays off. According to Holmes, “100 percent of people leaving the program have been in care for the last 6 months; 85 percent are still in care 6 months later.”

Establishing and maintaining care for her clients is not an easy task and often requires Leah and her staff to be innovative, tenacious, and true advocates for their clients resulting in a high level of empowerment and independence. HEALTH recognizes Leah’s work and Project Bridge as an exemplar program in providing an effective public health intervention to some of Rhode Island’s most vulnerable citizens.