Dedication- February 2007 Edition

This edition of Key Contacts is dedicated to Georgia’s health care workers who provide mental health and substance abuse treatment services to persons with HIV.

Mental illness, addiction, and other forms of substance abuse can be overwhelming barriers to wellbeing for persons with HIV, impairing ability to pursue a healthy lifestyle, to feel at peace, and to seek and use optimal medical care. Double or triple diagnosis with HIV, mental illness, and/or addiction has been called a “dangerous intersection.” We extend heartfelt thanks to those who work at this intersection, delivering services in suppport of maximal health for persons with HIV.

HIV-related mental health and substance abuse services in Georgia date from the mid-1980s, and we offer special thanks to pioneers from this era. At AID Atlanta, Jesse Peel MD and Don Smith PhD were local therapists who served as first consultants for patients and as trainers for the Buddy Program. The late Faye Brown Sperling led AID Atlanta’s first support group for substance users, and with husband Skip Sperling later founded Our Common Welfare, dedicated to the needs of persons dually diagnosed with HIV and substance abuse.

Mona Bennett founded the Atlanta Harm Reduction Center, offering support to substance users not yet ready or able to stop using. And in the mid-1980s Jeff Graham led Act Up efforts to provide syringe exchange for active users.

Chris Allers and Karen Benjack founded Positive Impact in Atlanta to provide mental health services to persons with HIV, and Paul Plate is the founding executive director. Psychiatrist J. Stephen McDaniel MD and psychologist Gene Farber PhD inaugurated the mental health component of Grady’s Infectious Disease Program. Jim Sacco MSW was SEATEC’s first staff trainer specializing in mental health and substance abuse topics.

To these pioneers, and to every therapist, counselor, hotline staffer, peer counselor, support group facilitator, and substance abuse worker who seeks a better life for persons with HIV, our sincere thanks.