City Homeless Outreach Team 2011 1^st Quarter Review

The outreach team has been transitioning their data collection and documentation into HMIS this quarter. They received training from MAACLINK in December and began entering information midway through January, when the system’s software was upgraded.

The team had some initial concerns about asking their clients to give permission to enter their information into a nationwide data base. Their experience has been that most people are willing to sign the consent when initially seeking services. There have been some existing clients that have had more concerns about doing this and some have decided not to sign consent, but the majority has done so when further explanation about the purpose is given.

This quarter there have been 36 heads of household entered into HMIS. MAACLINK will be developing reports in the near future so that more information can be obtained from the information that is entered.

Bert Nash has continued to host a monthly Homeless Providers Meeting. Work is currently being done to make the group more of a working group where individual cases can be discussed so that better collaboration on serving individuals can be achieved.

This is the first year an MSW student has been part of the outreach team and it has been a great success. Brad Cook, who supervised our student, even won the MARGO Award which is given out annually by KU for outstanding achievement in field instruction. We have hired this student as a full time outreach worker, replacing one who is moving to the Child and Family Services program at Bert Nash as a case manager. We have already chosen next year’s student who will start in August.

The team recently returned from the Homeless Summit in Hutchinson.  This is an annual trip for the team and gives them an opportunity to collaborate and share information from others across the state providing services to the homeless.