Module 5B: Community Resources and Services

To ensure outreach workers are knowledgeable of resources and services in the community and how to make use of them effectively

The learning activities in this section are designed to engage participants with the subject material using informative and interactive approaches. Instructors will need to determine which, if not all, of these activities to carry out depending on a) participants’ learning needs and interests, b) the focus of the training, and c) time available.

Instructors are encouraged to prepare for each activity by reviewing the handouts to be given to participants and by reading the recommended resource papers and materials that are listed. These papers and materials, along with other relevant resources, will provide useful background information to assist in fulfilling the purpose of this section. The amount of time suggested for each activity should be adjusted as needed.

ACTIVITY 1 Working Effectively in the Community

Purpose: To help participants develop ideas about ways to work effectively with the community in which they are doing outreach

Time: 20 minutes

Materials: Handout: Working Effectively in the Community

Preparation:

It takes a community to do effective outreach! Outreach at its best is not just the work of a few individual outreach workers, but requires the support of a committed and involved community, such as concerned citizens, police, bus drivers, businesses, social service organizations, civic groups, faith-based groups, politicians, and others.

Outreach workers play a vital role in eliciting and galvanizing this support from other community members and organizations. Without this support, outreach efforts are made doubly hard. When we think of community resources, we must think not only of services, but also of people and community groups as resources.

Resistance from some segments of the community will invariably exist. This resistance often stems from lack of awareness and misinformation about homelessness, negative attitudes towards homeless people, narrow self-interest, and certain beliefs.

Outreach workers, by reaching out to these non-homeless members of the community, whatever their level of openness or resistance, can help to enhance their outreach efforts by listening, engaging, educating, and ultimately advocating with them on behalf of those members of the community who are experiencing homelessness. In the long run, this stance will likely produce more favorable results than pursuing an adversarial approach.

Review the handout and think of ideas and examples from your own experience about ways to work more effectively within the community. Acquaint yourself with the activity steps below and tailor as you see fit.

Procedure:

1. Before distributing the handout, read or summarize the introductory comments to this activity. Invite a brief discussion about the idea of "reaching out" to the community itself.

2. Next, ask the group to identify the various ways they are involved in "reaching out" to community in their current work. Have them give specific examples.

3. Then invite the group brainstorm new ways they might reach out within the community or to enhance the involvements they already are undertaking. Refer to the handout at this point for the purpose of sparking ideas.

4. Encourage participants, individually or collectively, to take at least one idea from this brainstorm and pursue what steps would be required to put it into practice. (If possible, follow up on this at a future time to see what progress has been made.)

Purpose: To provide outreach workers with a useful short-list of relevant community resources for various populations and needs

Time: 15 minutes

Materials: Handout: Community Resources

Preparation: Familiarize yourself with the Community Resources grid. You may want to complete it on your own based on resources in your own community.

Procedure:

1. Distribute the handout to the group. Explain that the grid lists various sub-populations across the top row and their various survival/health/social service needs down the left side column. These categories can be changed as needed.

2. Instruct participants from the same communities to work together to fill in the grid. Others can work individually if necessary. Include as much specific information as possible.

3. Encourage participants to fill in all of the cells on the grid even if their primary focus is only on specific health concerns or certain sub-populations, for example, outreach to pregnant women or male intravenous drug users. In outreach it is important to be equipped with as much knowledge as possible about resource information for anyone the worker might encounter, even if briefly.

4. Suggest that workers carry this list with them and that they update it regularly as needed.

Purpose: To ensure that outreach workers are thoroughly familiar with various emergency services in the community and when and how to make use of them

Time: 10-15 minutes (longer is using alternative step #3)

Materials: A written resource sheet that describes various emergency services in the local community in which participants work. For example:

• Police

• Fire

• Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT’s), paramedics, aid car, ambulance

• Hospital emergency rooms/departments

• Community health clinics

• Abuse/sexual assault/domestic violence/traumatic stress resources

• Crisis outreach/involuntary commitment services for mental health and/or substance abuse

• Detox vans

• Crisis Hot-lines

• Emergency shelter/housing, food, clothing

Preparation: Find an existing list of the emergency resources (see above) in your community that has as much detailed information as possible. Make a handout sheet or booklet for each participant. If you are unable to find a suitable or complete list, compile one yourself or consider making this a group activity (see procedure step#3).

Procedure:

1. Explain the importance of being thoroughly knowledgeable about emergency resources and when and how to access them. Also, emphasize the importance of following up to find out what has happened with the individual who was referred for emergency care/services.

2. If you have come upon or created a comprehensive list to hand out to participants, take time to review the information there and discuss in detail when to access these emergency services, how to do so, and how to make follow-up contact.

3. Alternatively, if you choose to have the group participate in compiling this resource list, identify what services exist in the community and then create the list. You might assign individuals or small groups to obtain information about specific services. Have someone assemble and print the information so it can be distributed to the group. As in step #2, take time to review the list and discuss when and how to use the emergency services on it.

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This project was funded through a Cooperative Agreement with the Health Care for the Homeless Branch, Division of Programs for Special Populations of the Bureau of Primary Health Care/HRSA January 2002.