Supportive Services for Veteran Families:

Supportive Services for Veteran Families: Critical Program Design Decisions and Start-Up Activities August 11, 2011

Presenters John Kuhn, Acting Director, SSVF Program Office Melany Mondello, Technical Assistance Collaborative Marge Wherley, Abt Associates Stephanie Nagy, Abt Associates

Agenda Webinar Purpose and Welcome Critical Program Design Decisions and Activities: • Outreach • Case Management • Accessing VA Benefits • Accessing Mainstream Benefits • Other Supportive Services/Temporary Financial Assistance Closing Thoughts

What Will You Learn Today? • Decisions that can increase your program’s operations and effectiveness • Start-up activities and resources to help you operate a successful program associated with mandated and optional program components • Ideas for obtaining input from the populations that you serve, your staff and your community partners.

Webinar Format • Webinar will last approximately 2 ½ hours • Participants’ phone connections are automatically “muted” due to the high number of callers

Submitting Questions During the Webinar • Questions can be submitted via email at SSVF@va.gov • Questions will be answered through the publication of a Question and Answer resource.

Webinar Presentation Materials Material from this webinar will be available in the near future on: http://www.va.gov/homeless/ssvf.asp

Welcome! • Supportive Services for Veteran Families offers an important opportunity to develop and evaluate best practices for homeless or imminently homeless Veteran families. • VA, TA providers and Grantees are all part of a Learning Community, and will share data, insights, problem-solving. • The Learning Community is built into the grant program. More to follow!

Critical Program Design Questions • THINK about the inter-relationships between philosophy, target population, performance targets/outcomes and staff methods. • If one element is changed, it will affect all the others. • How does your program recognize participant choice? How do you solicit and use Veteran family input?

General Program:Design Decisions Program Philosophy Performance Targets Quality Assurance Staffing

Program Philosophy • SSVF focuses on promoting housing stability, utilizing a Housing First approach. • SSVF is “person-centered.” The Veteran defines his/her household; services are focused on the household’s needs as they define them.

Program philosophy is not just a mission statement! It should affect: • Who you hire, how you train and supervise • How you select participants and use their input into program policies and evaluation • How you deliver services and work with partner agencies

Performance Targets KEEP IN MIND: • The goal of SSVF is to “enhance housing stability.” • “The SSVF program is not intended to provide long-term support or address all the household’s financial and supportive service needs.” • VA encourages targeting Veteran households with extremely low incomes and current/former experiences of chronic homelessness (i.e., “most in need”).

Promote a Healthy Emphasis on Performance • Know how and when to review outcomes • Track environmental factors (local housing and job markets) that affect outcomes • Don’t make staff afraid to “fail”? Encourage staff to take risks, to be client-centered. • Don’t reward “safer” (less individualized) decisions about intake, case planning and termination.

Quality Assurance • Quality Assurance (QA) includes: • effectiveness • consumer satisfaction • access • efficiency • Use HMIS data, quarterly reports, and participant satisfaction surveys for QA. • You will also have technical assistance that can help with QA: online training, SSVF website, and one-to-one consultation.

Promote Quality Assurance • Decide who is responsible for asking the right questions • Set up a schedule for regularly reviewing the questions and the data • Seek input from participants to improve quality • Use the information to make program adjustments • Follow up with more data to decide if changes improve your program

Staffing EVERYTHING should promote your philosophy: • Staff selection • Training • Supervision • Performance reviews

Promote your Philosophy through your Staff Consider: • Hiring staff who have walked in your participants’ shoes (or boots) Why? • They can rapid engage with program participants, • They have practical, hard-won advice • They are successful role models: I did it and so can you!

General Program Activities Checklist • Create a Policy and Procedures Manual that operationalizes program philosophy, housing focus and participant choice in all aspects of operations. • Establish evaluation and QA policies, procedures and timelines for regular analysis of the program’s target population characteristics, outcomes, participant satisfaction and environmental factors.

General Program Activities Checklist (cont) • Develop personnel infrastructure • Job Descriptions • Training • Performance Review • Staff Supervision • Develop methods and timelines for monitoring program compliance with SSVF requirements. • Eligibility • Case Files • Data Collection • Fiscal Management • Reporting

Outreach: From the Regulations • “Grantees must provide outreach and use their best efforts to ensure that hard-to-reach very low-income Veteran families are found, engaged and assisted.” • “Outreach services must include active liaison with local VA facilities, State, local, tribal (if any), and private agencies and organizations providing supportive services to low-income Veteran families.”

SSVF Eligibility Definitions • Veteran: Served and was released under conditions other then dishonorable • Veteran family: The Veteran and household members (if any). • Very low income: Annual income does not exceed 50% of local Area Median Income • Occupying permanent housing: 1. Residing in permanent housing; 2. Homeless and scheduled to become a resident of permanent housing within 90 days; or 3. Exited permanent housing within the past 90 days to seek other housing responsive to their needs/preferences

Target your Population Determine who you are targeting within the eligible population of Veteran families Homeless populations: • In shelters? • On the streets? • Leaving institutions? Which households at risk of homelessness? • “But for this assistance…” would become homeless? • Risk factors to define and prioritize target households?

Outreach: Design Decisions Outreachshould be matched to the target population. • Determine where will you find the priority population(s)? • Determine what outreach approach results in rapid engagement? Screening/Assessment: information should be timely and relevant to the participant’s situation. • Determine what you will and will not assess

Provide Effective Outreach Tips for Staff to engage quickly with participants: • Offer “choice plus opportunity” • Allow people to disclose at their own pace • Don’t set people up to choose to lie to obtain services (requirements for sobriety, etc.) • People are experts in their own lives: respect their expertise • Rules set people up to spend their energy pleasing or fighting you

Outreach Activities Checklist • Develop an outreach plan with appropriate materials. • Focus training on the target population’s housing preferences and barriers, and rapid engagement. • Use formerly homeless Veterans families for input and as trainers • Define how and when to screen, assess and obtain eligibility documentation.

Outreach Linkages • Contact VA resources, public benefits programs, and homeless services providers in your community and make sure they know whom you assist and how to make a referral.

National Call Center The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has founded a National Call Center for Homeless Veterans hotline • To ensure that homeless Veterans or Veterans at-risk for homelessness have free, 24/7 access to trained counselors. • To assist homeless Veterans and their families, VA Medical Centers, federal, state and local partners, community agencies, service providers and others in the community.

Case Management:From the Regulations Case management must: • Assess the participant’s needs, develop and monitor a case plan • Establish linkages with appropriate agencies and service providers in the area or community • Provide referrals (and, as needed, help to access services) to help Veteran families to meet their identified needs • Educate participant households on issues such as rights and supportive services available • Decide how resources are allocated to participants on the basis of need

Case Management Design Decisions • Determine how you will respectfully assess SSVF participant and household housing needs and functioning • How will participate choice affect your assessment of “need”? • When and how should more in-depth assessments be sought and from whom? • Determine what kinds of case plan goals will enhance participant choice and housing stability • How do you assure the goals reflect the participant’s own priorities? • Determine the staff: household ratio for case managers

More Case Management Decisions • Determine how the program will allocate resources between program participants • What level of sign-off is needed for temporary financial assistance? • Determine what program participants should know about rights/responsibilities and available services • How should this be taught? • Determine how staff should conduct home visits • How will case managers respond to what they observe during home visits (e.g., a household member using illegal drugs?)

Case Management Activities Checklist • Design or adapt an assessment process and tool • Develop policies and procedures for home visits and provide staff training • Train staff in some level of “mediation” and conflict resolution for response to landlord-tenant and/or household problems

Case Management Activities Checklist (cont) • Design or adapt a case plan process and format that supports housing stability and participant choice • Develop policies and procedures for allocating resources • Develop, borrow or adapt educational materials and a strategy for teaching participants • Develop policy and procedures for case assignment, coordination and transfer

Assistance with Obtaining VA Benefits: From the Regulations Grantees must provide assistance in obtaining services that include, but are not limited to: • Vocational and rehabilitation counseling; • Employment and training services; • Educational Assistance; and • Healthcare services

Veteran Resources VA and other Federal resources: • Outreach (HCHV) • National Call Center for Homeless Veterans (NCCHV) • Prevention (VJO, HCRV, SSVF, VHPD) • Vocational Rehab (CWT) • Employment (VWIP, HVRP) • Permanent Housing (HUD-VASH) Program info: www.va.gov/homeless Services must address needs identified by those we serve

Healthcare for Homeless Veterans (HCHV) VA social workers and other mental health clinicians: • Offer Outreach • Identify homeless Veterans who are eligible for VA services • Assist them in accessing appropriate healthcare and benefits • Contracts with providers for community-based residential treatment for homeless Veterans

Veteran Justice Outreach (VJO)Initiative • Avoid the unnecessary criminalization of mental illness and extended incarceration among Veterans • Ensure that Veterans have timely access to VHA mental health and substance abuse services, and other VA services and benefits.

Veteran Treatment Courts • Hybrid Drug and Mental Health Courts that serve Veterans struggling with addiction, serious mental illness and/or co-occurring disorders • Promote sobriety, recovery and stability through a coordinated response • Involve the traditional partners found in Drug and Mental Health Courts • Include the Department of Veterans Affairs healthcare networks, Veterans' Benefits Administration, volunteer Veteran mentors, and Veterans/Veterans' family support organizations.

Health Care for Re-entry Veterans (HCRV)Program • Addresses the community re-entry needs of incarcerated Veterans. • Prevents homelessness, reduce the impact of medical, psychiatric, and substance abuse problems upon community re-adjustment, and decreases the likelihood of re-incarceration for those leaving prison.

Veterans Homeless Prevention Demonstration (VHPD) Collaboration of HUD, VA, and Department of Labor (DOL) • HUD: housing assistance • VA: health care assessment and services • DOL: education and job training Announced 5 sites—near military bases • Targets Veterans from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan • Urban and rural

VET Centers Community-based counseling centers located in all 50 states, DC, Puerto Rico, & Guam Provide readjustment counseling & outreach services to all Veterans who served in any combat zone Staffed by small multi-disciplinary teams of dedicated providers, many of which are combat Veterans themselves.

Compensated Work Therapy (CWT) • VA vocational rehabilitation program to match and support work-ready Veterans in competitive jobs, and to consult with business and industry regarding their specific employment needs.

DOL/VETS Programs • “Employment focused” • Increasing employability of (homeless) Veterans • Matching (homeless) Veterans with potential employers • Use case management to provide & coordinate direct services to (homeless) Veterans • Establish critical linkages to variety of supportive services available in the community • Homeless Veterans’ Reintegration Program (HVRP) and Veterans’ Workforce Investment Program (VWIP)

HUD-VASH Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) VA Supportive Housing (VASH) • Provides housing (HUD) with case management (VA) and supportive services (VA) designed to promote housing stability and recovery.

Homeless Veteran Benefit Assistance VHA funds twelve Veterans Benefits Counselors These specially funded staff provide: • Dedicated outreach, • Benefits counseling, • Referral, and • Additional assistance to eligible Veterans applying for VA benefits.

VA Benefits Activities Checklist Identify the VA programs in your community/area: • Check www.va.gov/homeless/index.asp • Check https://www.dol.gov/vets/index.htm • Check http://www.nationalresourcedirectory.gov • Check the Website for the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans http://www.nchv.org • The Call Center may have info about programs in your area 1-877-4AID-VET (1-877-424-3838)

VA Benefits Activities Checklist (Continued) • Contact each VA program to share information about your SSVF program and their resources • Identify protocols for referring Veteran families to each other’s services • Decide how your agencies will share information about mutual clients (include required Consent Forms) • Determine how you will document referrals, follow-up on referrals and case coordination in participant files.

Accessing Mainstream Resources: From the Regulations • Grantees must assist participants to obtain and coordinate the provision of other public benefits, that are being provided by Federal, State, local or tribal agencies, or any eligible entity in the area or community. • Grantees may also elect to provide directly to participants the public benefits identified in (c) through (i) but must comply with the same requirements as a third party provider of such benefits.

Mainstream Resources (a) Healthcare services, including health insurance and referral to a governmental or eligible entity (b) Daily living services for the functions of self-care, such as eating, bathing, grooming, dressing and home management NOTE: Although the two services above cannot be provided directly by grantees, they should be provided by referral wherever needed and available.

Other Mainstream Resources (c) Personal financial planning (d) Transportation services, preferably tokens for public transportation but also car leasing or repairs (up t $1000 in 3 years if needed to maintain housing) (e) Income supports services—assistance in obtaining other publicly-funded mental health benefits, employment counseling, medical assistance, veteran’s benefits and income support assistance. (f) Fiduciary and representative payee services (g) Legal Services (h) Child Care

Supportive Services for Veteran Families: