> NQC News | Training on Coaching Basics (TCB) Session: June 17-19, Dallas, TX  

Time is running out!

NQC's Training on Coaching Basics (TCB) Program is designed to close any educational gaps of quality managers and to increase individual quality improvement competencies. It also builds the participants' capacity as quality leaders to coach other HIV providers on quality improvement. The TCB is a 3-day face-to-face session, plus pre-work activities and post-course work. Participants will:

• Increase mastery of effectively coaching HIV providers to establish and sustain effective quality management programs and quality improvement teams
• Enhance ability to conduct organizational assessments, provide constructive feedback, and develop effective action plans based on assessment findings
• Improve confidence in understanding behaviors and interventions that promote a systems approach to quality management by using partnerships and shared vision
• Improve self-awareness of individual coaching style and of personal working style and limitations that may contribute to interpersonal tensions

The TCB Program is designed for individuals who work in Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program-funded grantees, are instrumental in managing existing quality management programs, and are charged in assisting other agencies within their network with advancing their quality management programs and quality improvement activities. Training participants must have successfully completed the Training-of-Trainer (TOT) or the Training of Quality Leaders (TQL) Program.

For more information about the TCB, including the training materials and slides | http://nationalqualitycenter.org/index.cfm/5847/37251

> NQC Update | H4C Update  

The HIV Cross-Part Care Continuum Collaborative (H4C) will hold its next meeting June 9 - 10, in Rockville, MD. Participants from the five member states (Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Ohio) will gather to share their progress in meeting the top H4C priority-improving HIV viral suppression rates among the HIV-infected populations they serve. Over the course of the collaborative, more and more of the discussion has been focused on improvement strategies and enhanced data analysis and review that the states have undertaken to improve viral suppression rates. During the next six months, the participating states will be assembling several statewide HIV Care Continua focusing on all people living with HIV and RWHAP clients. The next step is for service providers to create their own organizational Care Continuum.

> Consumer Perspective | Cindy Maldonado  

Cindy Maldonado has seen many changes since she and her fiancée were diagnosed in 1990 in Pennsylvania. At the time, although the only support group in their area was for gay men, Cindy and her fiancée were welcomed. They later became board members of a local AIDS service organization. [EC1] 

A move to Orlando, Florida in 1998 opened up many new opportunities for Cindy. Cindy volunteered with local ASOs before becoming a peer educator/family advocate for the HugMe Program in 2001. In HugMe, Cindy assisted clients in the medical clinic by providing education regarding all aspects of HIV disease. She co-facilitated various support groups for teens, pregnant women and mothers, adult men and women. In addition to her "hands on" work with clients, Cindy conducted the consumer advisory board and regularly attended meetings for the EMA's planning council.

More recently, Cindy moved to Daytona, Florida where she is involved in the Positive Champions Speaker's Bureau.

"Positive Champions gives us a voice and also serves as a support system," says Cindy.

In addition to taking part in Positive Champions events, Cindy has been involved in the local planning process and has served as the co-chair of the Partnership for Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Planning (PCHAP) of Volusia County. Through Positive Champions, Cindy attended an NQC Training of Consumers on Quality in December 2014. The training helped her build on her own experiences and those of the people that she has worked with to become a more effective advocate for HIV-related services.