John Hannay, CHES has substantial experience with services for YCMSM at-risk for or infected with HIV began in 1986. He was a volunteer and development coordinator for the Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League (SMYAL) in Washington, DC. At that time, he assisted SMYAL in constructing a health education program for youth that included HIV issues. He helped to secure public funding for SMYAL to conduct health education and risk reduction services with youth in the community.

Based on this experience, Mr. Hannay was recruited in 1988 to join the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DHMH) AIDS Administration. Initially at DHMH, Mr. Hannay worked with CBOs and local health departments to develop HIV prevention programs aimed at youth. Later, Mr. Hannay became a lead worker for youth-oriented programming funded by DHMH. Also during that time, Mr. Hannay helped to form Metro Teen AIDS in Washington, DC, a coalition of service providers seeking to coordinate HIV-related services to youth. In the early 1990s, Mr. Hannay took a two-year leave of absence from DHMH to direct the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Baltimore. His main accomplishments there were to stabilize the organization’s funding and health-related services to the community, including HIV services.

Mr. Hannay returned to DHMH in 1994 to oversee a variety of HIV prevention initiatives targeting various populations, including YCMSM. In this role, Mr. Hannay was responsible for coordinating prevention services with treatment and psychosocial support services for HIV-infected persons, including youth. Since 2001, Mr. Hannay has worked as an independent consultant to the CDC, the HAB SPNS Program, POI, and other clients. Mr. Hannay is the Project Director for the POI youth best practices project funded by HAB and described above. In this role, Mr. Hannay has interviewed over thirty HIV youth care and prevention projects across the US. Mr. Hannay also led a team of researchers and HIV youth program experts on site visits to four model HIV youth care and prevention projects. Mr. Hannay also conducted and extensive literature review to enhance HAB’s knowledge of the body of published literature and reports regarding HIV youth epidemiological characteristics, aspects of clinical care, results of clinical and observational studies involving HIV-infected youth, and results of program evaluations.

Mr. Hannay holds a Certificate of Completion, Maryland Government Executive Institute of the School of Public Affairs and School of Business and Management, University of Maryland College Park, a Masters in Theological Studies from the Wesley Theological Seminary, and a BA in Political Science from the University of Rochester. Mr. Hannay is a Certified Health Education Specialist by the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing.