Mission, Objectives and Mobile Services In our effort to address the barriers to healthcare access, our mission is to improve our clients well-being and health outcomes by providing medical, mental, and preventive services for individuals with a history of chronic homelessness. With a collaborative effort aided by the case management and outreach currently offered by the Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC), the mobile clinic will provide additional supporting services that will focus on bringing mental health services, healthcare and social services directly to our clients. As we strive to integrate our services by collocating a mobile clinic, we will focus on disease prevention and healthcare promotion through primary care, while employing a biopsychosocial approached with the goal of optimizing wellness within the population we serve. The objectives outline for the medical outreach program will focus on improved quality of care by using every advantage that is presented with a collocated model and the cross discipline solving techniques that will be available with coordinated care. This holistic approach will include a care team that will bring additional resources and will also focus on being the link to additional comprehensive services while monitoring treatment and outcomes. The integration of services can also prove to be cost effective by the flexibility it offers and by consolidating the resources currently available at WLCAC. The program will also be sustainable by using the working relationships it will have with other community health providers and by using the educational services provided by the University of Southern California. Providing medical services that touch upon primary care practice guidelines,... ... middle of paper ... ...arts. This will allow the staff to keep track of immunization records, and lab work while helping to monitor medication intake. The program will aim to measure its performance and will assess for service capacity, flexibility and delivery of services. The clinic will provide client questionnaire cards after every consultation in order to better assess for client satisfaction. The client questionnaire will focus on quality of service, recommendations, and treatment satisfaction. The questionnaires will be reviewed weekly and be look upon as an important tool for client input and overall program improvement. Internally the team along with the supporting staff will conduct a self assessment by using the Behavioral Health Integration Capacity Assessment (BHICA) that is aim at measuring service delivery and will help evaluate the program’s ability to implement integrated
9). Based on the afore initiatives, the mental health professional must decide which therapy would be beneficial in treatment for the clients’ problems. Evaluations and reevaluations may be needed to be successful in treatment (Nurcombe, 2014,
Although most people know what homelessness is and it occurs in most societies, it is important to define because the forces of displacement vary greatly, along with the arrangement and meaning of the resulting transient state. The Stewart B McKinney Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 defined a homeless person as “an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence or a person who resides in a shelter, welfare hotel, transitional program or place not ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation, such as streets, cars, movie theaters, abandoned buildings, etc.” Resent surveys conducted in the U.S. have confirmed that the homeless population in America is extremely diverse and includes representatives from all segments of society, including: the old and young, men and women, single people and families, city dwellers and rural residents, whites and people of color, employed and unemployed, able workers and people with serious health problems. The diversity among people that are homeless reflects how difficult it is to generalize the causes of homelessness and the needs of homeless people. Robert Rosenheck M.D., the author of Special Populations of Homeless Americans, explains the importance of studying homelessness based on subgroups, “each subgroup [of homeless people] has unique service needs and identifying these needs is critical for program planning and design.” Despite these diversities, homelessness is a devastating situation for all that experience it. Not only have homeless people lost their dwelling, but they have also lost their safety, privacy, control, and domestic comfort.
The only limitation to the study is that it failed to mention any costs related to obtaining the services. And it did not mention any demographic variables with respect to race, average age, and levels of income and mental health status (at intake) of the population they served. According to Cummings (2009) at intake, clients suffered a greatly with their activities of daily living and were recently hospitalized for psychiatric issues. It would be unfair to assume that the current study took into account for any of these issues. The study was limited in revealing this pertinent information. Greater knowledge of the patient during intake may provide for greater accuracy in determining the correct agency to direct the prospective client. Other than that, the program appears very thorough in their service delivery.
...em to come to the same general conclusion: public health programs for the homeless are not as effective as they could be. Whether it is not providing full attention in the type of service that is provided or a lack of outreach by the programs, a majority of people are not receiving the care they need. Instead of criticizing homeless people for crowding the emergency rooms consider the fact that they typically do not have an easily accessible alternative for medical care. “Systems like the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program have spent the past decades building a public health program that now has helped find insurance for 76% of patients who come through” (Oppenheimer et al., 2010, p.1401). It is important that cities all across the country begin programs that will improve and eventually completely eliminate the health care inaccessibility for the homeless.
Freeman-Longo, R., Bird,S., Stevenson, W., & Fiske, J., 1994 Nationwide Survey of Treatment Programs and Models, Brandon, VT: Safer Society Foundation, 1995.
Many believe that a common thread among the homeless is a lack of permanent and stable housing. But beyond that, the factors leading to homelessness and the services that are needed are unique according to the individual. To put them into one general category ? the homeless- suggests that people are homeless for similar reasons and therefore a single solution is the answer. Every homeless person shares the basic needs of affordable housing, adequate incomes and attainable healthcare. But a wide range of other unmet needs cause some people to become or remain homeless which include drug treatment, employment training, transportation, childcare and mental health services (Center 8.)
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] used the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ definition of mental illness as “health conditions that are characterized by alterations in thinking, mood, or behavior (or some combination thereof) associated with distress and/or impaired functioning” (2011). Our community is exposed to a large number of individuals with mental illness. Among those individuals are the widespread homeless populations. The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development reported “twenty-five percent of the sheltered homeless report a severe mental illness (as cited in Allender, Rector and Warner 2014 p. 907).” This author found the target population to be predominantly Caucasian, Non-Hispanic, single males of thirty-one years of age and older. In reviewing the research, this author found that multiple health disparities happen in conjunction with mental health and homelessness. This includes cardiac and respiratory issues and HIV/AIDs. Without the proper healthcare services, the homeless mental health population remains vulnerable.
Homelessness is one of the biggest issues society (Unites States) faces today. Homelessness is caused by lack of affordable housing, economic situations and decline in federal funding for low income families and the mentally ill. A homeless person is defined as an individual who lacks housing (without regard to whether the individual is a member of a family) including an individual whose primary residence during the night is a supervised public or private (shelters) facility that provides temporary living accommodations and an individual who is a resident in transitional housing. This definition of housing is used by the U.S Department of Healt...
Douglass, R., Torres, R., Surfus, P., Krinke, B., & Dale, L. (1999). Health Care Needs and Services Utilization Among Sheltered and Unsheltered Michigan Homeless. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Undeserved, 5-18.
Gulcur, Leyla, Padgett, Deborah K., and Tsemberis, Sam. (2006). “Housing First Services for People Who Are Homeless with Co-Occurring Serious Mental Illness and Substance Abuse.” Research on Social Work Practice, Vol 16 No. 1.
Sun, A., (2012). Helping homeless individuals with co-occurring disorders: The four components. National Association of Social Workers, 57(1), 23-37.
NASMHPD. (2014, Accessed April 27). Retrieved from NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF STATE MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAM DIRECTORS: http://www.nasmhpd.org/About/AOMultiStateDisaster.aspx
Treatment under this model is one of problem solving and utilizing an individual’s strengths to overcome his or her issues. The goal is to foster empowerment and self-sufficiency in order for the client to return to his or her environment (Woodside & McClam, 2014).
Most of clients from St Mungos (which cares for the homeless) are victims of poverty, unemployment, little or no education and one form of disability or the other. Many were sleeping rough on the streets before being admitted into the home. Many lost their jobs or are unable to secure jobs due to criminal record and lack of education or employable skills. Many are products of broken homes and became involved in crime, alcoholism and drug misuse. All these led to their becoming victims of social exclusion. Hence, at St Mungos the understanding of social processes and the effects on clients underlies the provision of personalised services based on individual circumstances and
Fitzpatrick, Joanne. “ONI Opening Doors Project—Improving Health for Homeless People and Families.” Community Practitioner 85.2 (2012): 19+. Academic OneFile. Web. 17 Oct. 2013.