Promoting Wellness:
An Integrated Approach to Homeless Service Delivery

Registration - All participants must register on the first day. Participants seeking Continuing Education Units must register on both days.

Opening – Ken Kraybill, Homelessness Resource Center

Welcome and orientation to the training agenda and logistics.
A taste of self-care.

Plenary Session – Ed Burns - producer, writer, and co-creator of the HBO series The Wire

Break

Break-Out Session I

1. Housing First – Mark Allison, Fred Berman, Frances Buchanan Huntington, WV

Housing First began almost 20 years ago, and has been proven to increase the stability of chronically homeless people who move into housing. This evidence-based practice has come to mean many things in different communities. This workshop will look at the essential elements of Housing First, and address the nuts and bolts of this proven approach to ending homelessness.

2. Understanding Traumatic Stress and Trauma-Informed Care: Part 1 – Kathleen Guarino, HRC

Learn about the connection between traumatic stress and homelessness and how it impacts clients’ lives. Discuss mitigating factors in people’s responses to traumatic events and how we can use knowledge of trauma to create trauma-informed services and systems.

3. Improving Employment Outcomes for Homeless Job Seekers Through Effective Partnerships with Employers – John Rio, AHP

Panelists will speak about what they need from job seekers. They will suggest strategies for employer relationship building, ideas on how to respond to diverse hiring approaches and understanding growth job sectors from an employer’s perspective. These can help case managers, employment specialists and job seekers to secure good work in hard times.

4. Building on Strengths in Rural Communities – Donna Thrush, NCFH, Anna Burns, Social Planning Concepts, Dreama Shreve, Appalachian Coalition to End Homelessness

This session will provide strategies to improve outcomes for homelessness systems of care in rural settings. We will discuss the steps from isolation to collaboration and how to improve program outcomes by improving connections with other resources in communities, regions, and states

5. Critical Time Intervention, An Evidence-Based Practice – Sam Catherine Johnston, HRC, Melissa Martin, HRC

Critical Time Intervention (CTI) is an evidence-based practice designed to support people as they transition from homelessness into housing. This introductory workshop will cover basic definitions, key elements of CTI, and next steps for your agency.

6. Client Involvement and Integration – Steven Samra, HRC, Todd Derk

Description Pending

Lunch Session: Taste of Self-Care & Plenary Talk - Bruce Perrone, JD

“Discriminatory and Non-discriminatory Federal Fair Housing ADA Laws”

Breakout Session II

1. A Taste of Motivational Interviewing – Ken Kraybill, HRC

Learn about the spirit and core skills of Motivational Interviewing (MI) in this introductory session. MI is a person-centered, goal-oriented, guiding method of communication to enhance motivation to change. This evidence-based approach is valuable for care providers of all disciplines.

2. Working with Homeless Youth and Young Adults – Wayne Centrone, HRC

Learn about the demographics, engagement techniques, and outreach methods for reaching and working with youth and “youth-identified” young adults. Case examples will be used to illustrate key points.

3. Management Matters: Leadership in Homelessness Programs – Laura Gillis, PATH

Explore strategies for recruitment and retention of staff, how to create strong teams, and tips for developing healthy organizations. This session is designed for anyone in leadership roles in homeless service agencies.

4. Customizing Job Placements – John Rio

A variety of tactics can be used to improve job finding activities and partnerships with employers especially when unemployment rates hover at or above 9%, but these must be tailored to the job seeker and be delivered by skilled job developers. This session will provide an overview of Customized Employment practices and how they can benefit both job-seeker and employer.

5. Expediting SSI/SSDI Applications: SOAR Critical Components and Models for Implementation – Dazara Ware, SOAR TA Center, Pam Root, SOAR TA Center

SOAR (SSI/SSDI Outreach, Access, and Recovery) projects around the country address issues like jail and prison reentry, reimbursement of uncompensated care to hospitals, General Assistance recoupment, coordinating veteran benefits, and access to housing and treatment – all by expediting applications for SSI/SSDI for people who are homeless or at-risk of homelessness. Learn how SOAR is implemented in prisons, jails, street outreach programs, and other settings from people who have done it.

6. Intro to PATH Data and Reporting PATH Providers Only – James McNemar, PATH, Melissa Martin, PATH

Discuss the important connections between your homeless outreach efforts and the annual data you report to SAMHSA. We will cover data collection, the current PATH outcome measures, and the basics of PATH annual reporting. We will also provide an introduction to the SAMHSA initiative to integrate PATH into HMIS.

Break

Moving Forward, Together: Involving Consumers as Colleagues – Steven Samra, HRC & Wayne Centrone, HRC

Examine the benefits and challenges of integrating consumers into direct service agencies. Gain insight and a first-person perspective of the unique opportunities, difficulties, and assistance consumer-providers can bring to an organization.

Peer Networking

Registration

Welcome Back – Ken Kraybill, HRC

A brief review of the previous day and the day ahead.
A Taste Self-Care

Opening Doors: Federal Strategic Plan to End Homelessness – Pete Dougherty (Invited) Mark Allison, HRC

The implementation of Opening Doors relies on the unprecedented collaboration that is occurring among federal agencies and other partners. Local leaders, service providers, and advocates are critical partners in achieving the goals in Opening Doors. This overview is an invitation for you to help implement the plan.

Break

Breakout Session III

1. Panel: The Federal Strategic Plan to End Homelessness – Anna Leva, SNAPS, HUD, Pete Dougherty (Invited), U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, Mark Allison, Homelessness Resource Center

Among the more specific actions stated in Opening Doors, panelists will focus their comments on several key objectives. These include: 1) Increase meaningful and sustainable employment; 2) Improve access to mainstream services to reduce people’s financial vulnerability; 3) Integrate primary and behavioral health care services with homeless assistance programs and housing to reduce people’s vulnerability to homelessness; and 4) provide affordable housing.

2. Understanding Traumatic Stress and Trauma-Informed Care: Part 2 – Kathleen Guarino, HRC

What does it mean to create trauma-informed services and systems? How can we take trauma-informed theory and turn it into concrete ways to improve our work? We will discuss these questions and provide concrete tools to assess organizational trauma-informed practices. We strongly recommend that you attend this session only if you have attended Part 1.

3. Supportive Housing and The Pursuit of Purpose – John Rio, AHP

Earning income and permanent housing are the keys to ending veteran homelessness! Employment services and permanent housing providers can improve their outcomes by learning how to work better together. Stable housing provides a platform for job seeking and retention while employment promotes housing stability. Together, these programs can help even those with significant barriers succeed.

4. Confidentiality and HIPAA - Melissa Wright, Suzanne Messenger, WV

Description Pending

5. Addressing Legal Challenges Faced by Homeless Veterans – Stephan Haimowitz, HVRP, Steven Samra, HRC

This session will discuss tools such as Veteran and Homeless Courts, reentry planning after incarceration, handling criminal records on job applications/interviews, and federal bonding/tax credit programs.

6. Communities of Practice: Learning Over the Long Term – Sam Catherine Johnston, HRC, Kaela Gray, HRC

Discover what a community of practice is, its dimensions, and how it works. We will also discuss how to launch a community of practice, foster its growth, and build learning partnerships that allow people in agencies to continually learn together and improve their practices.

Lunch & Sustaining Learning through Communities of Practice

Breakout Session IV

1. Innovative Housing Strategies – Mark Allison, HRC, Francie Roberts-Buchanan, Information and Referral Service

The only way to have enough housing to end homelessness is to stretch your imagination to use every possible means of procuring housing: Housing Choice Vouchers, HUD direct housing grants, single site housing, local rent subsidies, etc. This workshop will look at the model used in Washington, DC and other communities to develop as much housing as possible in ending homelessness in these communities.

2. Bridging a Way into the VA – Steven Samra, HRC, Jesse Vazzano, VISN 5, Pete Dougherty

This session is geared primarily for non-VA service providers to offer general instructions and information to assist civilian community agencies, including HVRP grantees, in understanding and accessing VA services successfully.

3. HMIS 101: Intro to HMIS – James McNemar, PATH

Discuss the basics of HUD Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS), the software application designed to record and store client-level information on the characteristics and needs of homeless persons. We will describe how HMIS is implemented and the benefits HMIS offers the provider community. HMIS standards and requirements, Continuum of Care, data sharing, and privacy/security will also be covered.

4. Enhancing Skills in Motivational Interviewing: Recognizing, Eliciting, and Responding to Change Talk – Ken Kraybill, HRC

Statements about one’s own desire, ability, reasons, need, and commitment to change are predictive of taking change steps. Hone your skills as a care provider in recognizing, eliciting and responding to client change statements. This workshop is for participants with a basic working knowledge of Motivational Interviewing.

5. Medical Care for Non-Medical Providers – Wayne Centrone, HRC

This session will advance participants’ understanding of basic medical terminology, emergencies, common illnesses, diseases, and conditions that punctuate the lives of people experiencing homelessness. The session will draw from clinical case examples.

6. What are the Educational Rights of Homeless Children and Youth – Speaker Pending

An overview of the current revisions of the McKinney-Vento legislation and state and local education agency requirements will be explained. There will be opportunity for a question and answer period relative to state and local implications relative to this federal law. School district staff, as well as service providers who advocate for the educational rights of homeless children and youth, are encouraged to attend.

Break

Now What? – Ken Kraybill, HRC

Reflect on what has been learned and strategize ways to bring new skills and knowledge into your practice through implementing communities of practice in your own work context.

Continuing Education Units Issued