O.C. MENTAL HEALTH 3 - 2006 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Description of Outcome Tracking System: Please describe your organization's outcome tracking system that will enable you to fulfill the outcome selected above. The Outreach Team adheres to a designated schedule of sites which allows for visability and consistancy, report building, and follow- up services. Daily paperwork allows to record and track new and duplicated clients and their activity. See attached: Daily Schedule, DATABASE Form (for new clients only), Monthly Client Service Log (records new and exsiting clients), Referral to Social Services, Referral to Housing Program, Job Placement, and SSI. Contacts are entered into DATABASE (located in the Outreach Office at 2416 S. Main Street, Santa Ana, CA) where monthly statistics are extracted. Weekly staff meetings provide staff support, verification of clients being homeless (manager signs off on DATABASE forms), new resources, and referrals. The collection of a wide vartiety of outcome data is an escpecially difficult task where homeless outreach services are concerned. The transient nature of the population does not lend itself to timely follow-up interviews, and confidentiality concerns strickly limit the amount of information other service providers are premitted to provide. Moreover, the mere collection of information can lead to the refusal of services on the part of Program Participants who may fear revealing details about themselves. The achievement of short- term goals such as serving the targeted number of unduplicated individuals served are relatively easy to measure. However, long-term impacts such as permanent reduction in the number of homeless individuals serves are far more difficult to measure given the nature of the population and the large number of confounding variables present in the larger delivery system and in society. These barriers to access are an especially inportnat issue for the target pauIation and our ongoing outreach efforts to help reduce the barriers. MHA: as the specialist in serving the chronically mentally ill of Orange County has developed a full continuum of psychosocial and mental health prograrus that efficiently assist individuals in ending their homelessness and stabilizing their psychiatric and social functioning. The Outreach Prograru has been a vital "port of entry" to these services, first by locating individuals who are homeless due to mental illness, meeting their immediate basic needs, (ie: food, warm clothing, emergency shelter), and then linking them with the services to stabilize them and move them off the streets. OUf continuum of services include a housing assistance program to find individuals long-term housing and compassionate landlords; the back to work program helps these individuals to obtain and retain jobs; the benefits assistance program assists them in applying for disability benefits; the homeless multi-service center offers ongoing specialized case management services 365 days per year, as well as mental health and medication services to stabilize the mental status of these individuals long-term. All of these programs are focused on helping the homeless mentally ill stabilize, have a better life and get off the streets and this is a benefit to the individual, but also the local neighborhood. Exhibit A-I Page 3 of 4