GH CAN Operations 9/6/17

Greater Hartford Coordinated Access Network

Operations Agenda

Wednesday, September 6^th, 2017

Attended: Manuel Cadena (Catholic Charities), Anita Cordero (ImmaCare), Stephanie Corbin (Mercy), Rochelle Currie (The Connection), Angel Fernandez (The Open Hearth), Mollie Greenwood (Journey Home), Steve Hurley (Journey Home),  Je’Naya King (CHR), Klaudia Lobeska (CRT East Hartford), Gerilyn Maciel (Salvation Army Marshall House), Kyren McCrorey (The Open Hearth)Malika Nelson (CHR), Heather Pilarcik (South Park Inn), Lisa Quach (Journey Home), Luz Serrano (ImmaCare), Rob Soderberg (CHR), Wendy Walker (McKinney), Tanesha Shuler (My Sisters’ Place), and Rika Racelis (Chrysalis)

1.      Welcome and Introductions

a.      Leadership Updates – Mollie Greenwood

a.      Mollie says that the city has found a location for a warming center. The city has not yet put out a proposal for funding for the warming center.

b.      Mollies says CAN leadership has decided to have standing meetings on Mondays at 3pm of planning out the Cold Weather Protocol Process.   Any interested staff are welcome to attend.

c.      Mollies says the rally for Non Profit providers at The Capitol tomorrow and is from 10:30 to noon.

d.      Mollie says there were no families that were matched to family PSH openings at last week's meeting because case managers believed that many families on the BNL did not require the ongoing assistance levels available with PSH.

e.      Mollie says CAN leadership looking at scattered site to change to individual PSH instead

f.       Mollie says the Veteran committee met last week and plan to schedule another time to meet soon.

2.      Case Conferences – Fred Faulkner

a.      No case conferences were brought up at this meeting.

3.      Coordinated Entry:

a.      Shelter Waitlist Process Changes – Steve Hurley

                                                    i.     Training Times

a.      Steve says Smartsheet training is available on Thursday 9/7 from 4pm-5m at 76 Pliny Street at My Sister’s Place.

b.      Steve says the new policy and procedures for the shelter waitlist on Smartsheet will be in effect starting Monday, September 11^th.  The policies were distributed to all staff, and are attached below:

1.     Suggested Process

A.    By 8:00 AM - Shelters notify Diversion Center of any vacancies in new “Shelter Bed Vacancies” smartsheet.

·       If the shelter does not have any vacancies, please continue to update the smartsheet daily even if it says 0.

·       If a shelter has not updated the smartsheet in 5 business days, Journey Home will reach out to the agency/program manager. 

B.    9:00 AM-1:00 PM

·       Designated Outreach workers (Tony Mack, Dave Duverger, Je’naya King, Kelly Gonzalez, Shihan Ghazi, Juanita Blablock or Tina Gaines) call shelters to request an immediate shelter referral to the vacant beds for people they have visually verified that the person is sleeping outside. 

a.     Outreach workers adds client to Smartsheet & check “Verified Unsheltered” box.

b.     If a client is accepted into shelter, shelters update Shelter Bed Vacancy Smartsheet and client status appropriately (Pending, etc).

c.     Can fill all beds with these referrals.  If all beds are full, outreach worker adds to Smartsheets and checks Verified Unsheltered”.

·       Designated Diversion staff and Connection staff (Stephanie Corbin and Rochelle Currie (Mondays) - Add all those who cannot be diverted to Smartsheet. For special cases (see below), they will call shelters to request an immediate shelter referral for vacancies. 

a.     If a client is accepted into shelter, shelters update Shelter Bed Vacancy Smartsheet and client status appropriately (Pending, etc).

b.     Diversion staff should not fill all vacant beds with these referrals.  Should leave some beds open for other emergencies.

·       Soup kitchen staff – (Janet Bermudez) – Assist clients in calling 211 for a CAN appointment. For special cases (see below), they will call the diversion center to check if the client is on the shelter priority list. If client is on the list, shelter diversion coordinator will reach out to shelters to request an immediate shelter referral. 

Note: If shelter calls a client and the client does not answer, and the shelter leaves a voicemail/message(s), shelters should not  offer this bed to another client. This bed will be held until the following morning.  If the client is reached by phone, says they will come, but the client does not show up by the appointed time, then the shelter can follow the protocol below.

C.    2:30 PM and later – Shelters should use SmartSheet to try and fill any remaining shelter vacancies as has been done for the past few months using CAN prioritization for shelter.

·       Shelters will make a minimum of 2 calls to the client and inform them they have until 8am the next day to call back and/or show up. Everything resets at 9am. (This eliminates the 24 hour wait time.  Due diligence policies will be updated to reflect this new process.)

·       While shelters are waiting for call backs, they should not offer the bed to another client. Example: If there are 5 beds open at 3pm and there have been calls made to 5 clients and an outreach worker calls the shelter asking for immediate shelter referral at 4pm, the 5 beds will be heldso the shelter should not offer a bed to the Outreach worker’s client.

·       Before 8am, shelters will mark all client’s status as appropriate. (“No Shows” or “Accepted”). This will reduce the volume of the waitlist if clients are removed from the waitlist after being contacted.

2.     Point of Contact

A.    Third shift shelter staff would be responsible for updating “Shelter Bed Vacancies” Smartsheet by 9am.

B.    All staff who answer the phone between 9am-2pm at all the shelters are authorized to determine if a client can be accepted to shelter. All staff should be sent to a training at Journey Home. 

3.     Guidelines for Immediate Referrals from Diversion Center to Shelters

Some possibilities include:

                                                    i.     People who are or have been sleeping outside and staff can see multiple signs of evidence such as:

·       showering on site

·       hygiene/physical appearance

·       carrying all their belongings

·       can specifically describe the location where they are sleeping

                                                   ii.     Medically compromised people with discharge paperwork/wristband who staff believe were sleeping outside before they went into the hospital/institution setting, etc. 

                                                 iii.     Use judgment call 

These processes were approved by the Operations Committee and are effective next week, after the SmartSheets trainings have taken place.

4.      Coordinated Exit:

a.      Recently Housed – Lisa Quach

b.      Housing Data – see pg.2

c.      Rapid ReHousing Meeting Changes: Progressive Engagement Training

-RRH Training will be on 9/13 at 1pm at 76 Pliny Street at My Sister’s Place.

5.      CAN Survey Raffle Winner Drawing

6.      Announcements

a.      Hands On Hartford and a number of community partners are working on planning the Day of Sharing and Caring, and needs lots of help planning and pulling off this event. If you’re interested in assisting, please contact swalker@handsonhartford.org. The event will take place on 11/2/17

b.      Salvation Army is offering an Anti-Human Trafficking Training at Capitol Region Mental Health Center on Tuesday, 9/26 from 1 – 4PM. Register for training with Cat Damato at damatoc@crtct.org.

c.      Security Deposit Guarantee Program is only available for chronically homeless clients at this time.