Greater Hartford
Coordinated Access Network
Planning Meeting
Minutes
May 14, 2014
In Attendance:
Lynn Naughton, Sandy Barry – Salvation Army (Marshall
House); Tina Ortiz, Steve Bigler, Sarah Pavone – Community Renewal Team;
Barbara Shaw- Hands on Hartford; Diane Paige’Blondet, Kathy Shaw- My Sisters’
Place; Justine Couvares – Chrysalis Center, Inc.; Brian Baker, Heather Pilarcik
– South Park Inn; Andrea Hakian, Amber Higgins- CHR, CT Rapid Re-housing; Sarah
Melquist- Manchester Area Conference of Churches; Bryan Flint, Peg Doffek –
Cornerstone Foundation; Louis Gilbert, David Shumway, Roger Clark- Immaculate
Conception Shelter and Housing Corp.; Marilyn Rossetti, Kat Hannah- Open Hearth
Association; Mary Davenport- The Network Against Domestic Violence, Enfield;
Dave Martineau, Mary Gillette- Mercy Housing, Shelter Corporation; Dan Walsh,
Enid Martinez – Veterans Inc.; Crane Cesario – Capitol Region Mental Health
Center- DMHAS, Hartford CoC Chair, Greater Hartford S+C; Brenda Earle – Dept of
Housing; Amanda Girardin, Matt Morgan, Amina Musa – Journey Home; Kitty Dudley,
Pat Kupec - Dept of Correction: Re-Entry;
Lionel Rigler – City of Hartford, ESG; Kristen Granatek- CT Coalition to End
Homelessness; Wendy Caruso – 2-1-1.
Legend:
CAN: Coordinated Access
Network
GH-CAN: Greater Hartford
Coordinated Access Network
2-1-1 : InfoLine,
telephone-based statewide referral system
DOH: CT Dept of Housing
CoC: Continuum of Care
BOS: Balance of State CoC
DOC- CT Dept of Correction
DMHAS: CT Dept of Mental
Health and Addiction Services
HMIS: Homeless Management
Information System
ECM: HMIS Software program used
by CT: provided by Empowered Solutions Group
HUD: US Dept of Housing and Urban Development
UHA – Universal Housing
Application
VI-SPDAT – Vulnerability
Index – Services Provision Decision Assistance Tool – an assessment tool under
consideration
Agenda
1. Welcome and Introductions
2. CAN Overview
a.
HUD has mandated that funding recipients for
homeless programs have a Coordinated Access process.
b.
DOH has contributed funding and worked on the
state level to develop a framework for Coordinated Access Networks in CT,
identifying eight regions and outlining the statewide process. Regions are to determine the local plan to
best meet the needs of clients and communities served.
i.
DOH is providing funding to contract with 2-1-1
to build a front end system. 2-1-1 will
do initial assessment and high-level diversion screens to filter qualified
people through to your CAN. The staff of 2-1-1 will enter client pre-screen
data into ECM (HMIS) which will be sent to your local CAN ECM “bucket”. (see handout of screening questions)
ii.
It is up to each community to sort out what will
work best for the regional CAN.
1.
How will we circle around that person to
find all of the services necessary for that client? Not all referrals will need emergency shelter,
many might need other interventions. We
should incorporate diversion strategies from recent trainings.
2.
Request for one point of contact from each COC
to sit on the statewide CAN Planning Committee. Crane Cesario and Marilyn Rossetti will start
in this role.
a.
Next meeting will be June 5th, 10
AM-12 PM at CCEH
b.
Crane
and Marilyn will represent Hartford at this meeting, Marilyn cannot attend the
June meeting so Sandy will go in her stead.
iii.
2-1-1 has created a “Draft Coordinated Intake
Protocol” to help us to formalize our planning process in designing our local
CAN. Please see handouts for this
protocol.
c.
We can have different buckets (referral groups)
within our CA. There doesn’t have to be one point of access for referrals from 2-1-1. We can designate different points by
date/time, or based on geography they are coming or going to and can specify
the number per day. If the need exceeds
the capacity, then the client will have to wait until the next referral day
i.
We are responsible for determining what we
do with clients who need shelter “tonight” but are above our daily capacity
for intake (When we say “CAN intake” is
NOT synonymous with “Shelter intake”.)
ii.
Cannot accept walk-ins. If people come through the door they will
have to call 2-1-1 to enter into the system.
It is suggested you let them use your phone if they don’t have one. Possibly utilize Day Shelters / Soup Kitchens
such as House of Bread and St. Elizabeth’s, Hands on Hartford as places for
individuals to make calls during the day.
a.
This feels like the protocol is not very client
focused. We will need to come up with
something that will make sure these clients are not wandering the streets or
struggling to make calls.
iii.
You can use shelter case management dollars to
process these referral calls from 2-1-1.
iv.
We need to reevaluate the local workflows we
came up with previously to address the CAN process.
1.
Where does UHA fall into the workflow? Where might VI-SPDAT fall in the workflow?
2.
DOH will work to clarify where in the workflow
certain forms will be completed.
d.
Many communities are having weekly CAN meetings
or at least bi-weekly meetings
e.
At the last GH- CAN meeting on April 5th,
a map of CT was handed out detailing the 8 different Coordinated Access
Networks (CANs) – ours is Greater Hartford.
These were created by the statewide planning committee and boundaries
were based on client guests’ churning patterns (movement between shelters)
f.
In addition to coordinated access into our
system, HUD is also requiring standardized forms, included assessments for
housing interventions, services and diversion.
The Balance of State (BoS) CoC is trying to figure out what these tools
will be. (The VI-SPDAT may be utilized).
i.
DOH met with Hartford representatives who has
indicated that the Hartford CoC will participate in the statewide plan. This means we are required to use the tools
decided upon by the statewide planning process that is happening through BOS. This means that Hartford CoC has:
1.
Signed on to use 2-1-1 as front door, which DOH
is funding
2.
Agreed to work as the Greater Hartford (CAN)
instead of just Hartford
3.
Agreed to participate in planning, and adopt the
statewide plan (ie. Standardized forms and protocols)
3. Other Considerations and Concerns:
i.
Although when the Hartford CoC applied to HUD (Submitted
this year’s NOFA) we specified that we were working on a state-wide coordinated
access plan, Hartford CoC Advisory Board members were not clear that we agreed to
the state/ BoS decision.
1.
Hartford requests representation as the Hartford
CoC in a voting capacity at the BoS group working to come up with the
standardized tools.
2.
BoS CoC meetings are on the 1st Monday of the
month, next one on June 2nd at noon in Middletown. Brenda will let us know the schedule,
a. A Hartford CoC chair and Marilyn will
attend
3.
2-1-1 has created a “Draft Coordinated Intake
Protocol” to help us to formalize our thought process in designing our local
CAN. We need to answer the questions
within.
b.
DOC question / suggestion: Can the Department of
Correction have a seat at the state-wide group as well? We are statewide and our clients are often
discharged to emergency shelters, though until they are released to shelters
they are not considered “homeless” according to federal definitions.
i.
It appears that the “re-entry” entities haven’t
been at the table, though other DOC employees have been.
ii.
Brenda will follow up
c.
Shelter Staff are not currently doing
intakes/assessments on people unless they are their clients who are definitely
residing at their shelter, no capacity to do this type of work for clients
entering the system who aren’t necessarily coming to stay at our shelter.
d.
How will our shelter staff perform the other
expected functions if not all clients being referred require shelter
intake? The staff only have intimate
knowledge of the different shelter eligibility.
i.
CCEH: Everyone who pulls referrals from the 2-1-1 bucket will need to be trained
to have an intimate understanding of ALL, shelter, housing, prevention,
diversion programs in our CAN
1.
This becomes feasible when the time previously
spent answering phones or dealing with walk-ins is freed up to do other tasks.
2.
If the community is doing this together, the
burden will be shared.
3.
New Britain is making one organization
responsible for training their CAN intake specialists and are creating a
training binder to use.
e.
How are DV shelters fitting in to this? What is our coordinated exit strategy? This is the second component of the
system.
i.
In New Britain, Prudence Crandall is directly
involved, they are taking general calls and their specific DV calls.
ii.
DV calls will be screened out prior to entering
CANs, unless DV comes out later in the initial screening, in this case they
will be rerouted and their HMIS record will be deleted for privacy and safety
reasons.
f.
If someone is exiting a shelter due to
disciplinary reasons, or length of stay we have to figure out how they will get
into another shelter or situation.
Some options:
i.
Call 2-1-1 again
ii.
Have weekly case management calls to figure out
what to do with that person
iii.
Don’t allow them back into “the system” for 30
days
iv.
May have to address current Length of Stay (LOS)
and focus more on discharge outcomes than LOS
4. Identify Working Groups and Meeting
Schedule
a.
Working Groups:
i.
Data quality management workgroup- Statewide
HMIS Steering Committee is working on this plan. We need to identify what are we measuring and
ensure that we are making progress.
ii.
Resource Sharing- includes training and
transportation (reach out to United Way for funds?)
iii.
Individual Men and Women
iv.
Families
b.
Meeting Schedule:
i.
Amanda will send out an email people can respond
to about specific working groups of interest.
ii.
Coordinating a CAN Intake protocol, part of
which includes shelter referrals, will be PRIORTIY #1
c.
Next Full Meeting for next Wednesday 5/21/14
at 1:30 PM- Location TBD
i.
We are still waiting on CCEH to provide a
schedule of all the other communities’ meeting times
ii.
Willimantic is Tuesday morning
iii.
New Britain is Thursday mornings
5. Initial Responses to System Questions for
Nutmeg and HMIS:
a.
What is your CAN Region Name? Greater Hartford CAN
b.
Do individuals and families have different
intake process (workflow) once they are referred to the CAN?
Yes
i.
If yes above, is the initial interview conducted
by different people (or locations)?
Yes there will be different
locations on different days.
c.
How many intake locations will be available at
the CAN? If you utilize more than 1, are these locations “open” at the same
time, or do they alternate days?
TBD, although we expect that
there will be more than one location.
6. Deadlines:
a)
We are required to get Nutmeg our answers for
HMIS integration by August 29th with our local plan starting on
October 1, 2014.
b)
The state-wide CAN plan using 2-1-1 will roll
out starting on July 1, 2014. There is a schedule posted, with Greater Hartford
having dates as listed in 5. above.
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