Articles for the Topic "Best Practices for Providers"

2006 Awards for Excellence in Affordable Housing: Supportive Housing and Property and Asset Management

2007-04-06T11:30:09

Affordable housing is a vital element of healthy communities. When it is developed to meet resident and community needs and well managed, it can change the lives of individuals and transform neighborhoods. MetLife Foundation and Enterprise launched the Awards for Excellence in Affordable Housing in 1996 to increase the quantity and quality of affordable housing nationwide. In the program’s 11 years, we have recognized more than 66 nonprofits for thought leadership, innovation and effectiveness in supportive housing and property and asset management. Award winners have received more than $1.1 million in unrestricted support to sustain and expand their work, and Enterprise has shared their best practices with the field. This publication includes case studies of the award-winning projects for 2006. We hope that the projects serve as a model for organizations across the country working to change lives and communities through decent, well-managed affordable housing. (Authors)

A Best Practice Approach To Community Re-entry From Jails for Inmates With Co-occurring Disorders: The APIC Model

2007-06-04T02:44:13

Almost all inmates with co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorders will leave correctional settings and return to the community. Inadequate transition planning puts people with co-occurring disorders who enter jail in a state of crisis back on the streets in the middle of the same crisis. The outcomes of inadequate transition planning include the compromise of public safety, an increased incidence of psychiatric symptoms, relapse to substance abuse, hospitalization, suicide, homelessness, and re-arrest. While there are no outcomes studies to guide evidence-based transition planning practices, there is enough guidance from the multi-site studies of the organization of jail mental health programs to propose a best practice model. This manuscript presents one such model - APIC. The APIC Model is a set of critical elements that, if implemented, are likely to improve outcomes for persons with co-occurring disorders who are released from jail. (Authors)

A Review of Case Management for People Who Are Homeless: Implications for Practice, Policy, and Research

2007-08-06T01:35:01

This paper discusses concepts, models and approaches to case management for people experiencing homelessness, including how these apply to various subgroups and specialty areas. It includes a literature review and recommendations on exemplary practices.

Alcohol & Drug Abuse: the Best of Practices, the Worst of Practices: the Making of Science-based Primary Prevention Programs

2007-06-06T11:02:56

This article discusses school-based drug and alcohol prevention programs, and their effect on subsequent use of these substances by students. The article examines programs such as multiple subgroup analysis, post hoc sample refinement, and use of points in time other than the study baseline to calculate attrition rates. The author briefly describes two other common practices, using as examples three of the most widely advocated prevention programs: the Seattle Social Development Project (SSDP), the Life Skills Training (LST) program, and the ATLAS program. (Author)

Assessing the Evidence: What We Know About Outreach and Engagement

2009-02-24T01:01:28

Many of us recognize the value in outreach and engagement, and we practice and promote it in our communities. But what defines it? How do we know what works? How do we know that our approach to outreach is consistent with other successful approaches? This evidence brief shares preliminary findings from HRC’s review of outreach and engagement.

Best Practices for Effecting the Rehabiliation of Affordable Housing, Vol I

2007-01-23T11:21:32

Part I: The rehabilitation of affordable housing faces many institutional and regulatory barriers. Because the existing stock varies so much in condition, age, and construction methods, the rehab process is far less predictable and in many ways more challenging than new construction. Nevertheless, the rehabilitation of the country's aging stock is a major resource for meeting the Nation's affordable housing needs. Despite the demonstrated benefits of rehabilitation, there is potential for even greater use for the existing stock, not only to address affordable housing needs, but to promote broader community revitalization goals as well. However, to date there has been a lack of in-depth practical guidance on the many regulatory and other factors that act as barriers to rehabilitation of housing that is affordable. Gaining a sound grounding of these issues has been difficult because barriers vary from project to project and from community to community. To address these concerns, HUD,as part of its American 's Affordable Communities Initiative, entered into a cooperative agreement with the National Trust for Historic Preservation to identify and document workable solutions to the major barriers to urban rehabilitation. The product of this collaboration is this report, Best Practices for Effecting the Rehabilitation of Afordable Housing, which is intended to fill this information gap and, in so doing, empower decision-makers and housing professionalsto begin work to eliminate these barriers. This two-volume report distills the practices that have been shown to work in many settings to implement the renovation of affordable housing. These best practices are designed to address the challenges to rehab at its development, construction, and occupancy stages. Volume I is a comprehensive resource guide to state, local, and federal tools for overcoming barriers. Volume II provides analyses of key rehab resources and barriers, and case studies of state and local efforts to overcome major regulatory impediments.

Best Practices for Effecting the Rehabiliation of Affordable Housing, Vol II

2007-01-23T11:21:32

Part II of Best Practices for Effecting the Rehabilitation of Affordable Housing, analyzes key rehab resources and barriers, and case studies of state and local efforts to overcome major regulatory impediments. See also Part I: for a complete description.

Effectiveness of Policies and Services for Homelessness

2008-12-30T12:44:39

In 2007, the Observatory published its first European Journal of Homelessness. The Journal provides a critical analysis of policy and practice on homelessness in Europe for policy makers, practitioners, researchers and academics. The aim is to stimulate debate on homelessness and housing exclusion at the European level and to facilitate the development of a stronger evidential base for policy development and innovation. The journal seeks to give international exposure to significant national, regional and local developments and to provide a forum for comparative analysis of policy and practice in preventing and tackling homelessness in Europe. The journal will also assess the lessons for Europe which can be derived from policy, practice and research from elsewhere (Authors).

Homeless Shelters and Programs: Analysis of Benchmarks and Best Practices

2007-07-26T01:40:43

This study analyzed the operating practices at homeless shelters and programs in a number of key areas, including sources of revenues, partnerships, caseworker assistance, intake procedures, food, counseling, health care and mental health, alcohol and drug abuse recovery, educational and life skills training, personal development, employment, computer training, spiritual guidance, housing placement, outreach services post-shelter and success measurement. The objectives of the study were as follows: • Evaluate homeless program operating practices. • Provide meaningful homeless program performance comparisons. • Survey the practices that homeless programs have implemented to improve their effectiveness. • Develop benchmarks to measure effectiveness. (Ward Family Foundation, Inc.)

Housing First for Long-Term Shelter Dwellers with Psychiatric Disabilites in a Suburban County: A Four-Year Study of Housing Access and Retention

2007-08-14T02:53:30

Housing First is an effective intervention that ends and prevents homelessness for individuals with severe mental illness and co-occurring addictions. By providing permanent, independent housing without prerequisites for sobriety and treatment, and by offering support services through consumer-driven Assertive Community Treatment teams, Housing First removes some of the major obstacles to obtaining and maintaining housing for consumers who are chronically homeless. In this study, consumers diagnosed with severe mental illness and who had the longest histories of shelter use in a suburban county were randomly assigned to either one of two Housing First programs or to a treatment-as-usual control group. Participants assigned to Housing First were placed in permanent housing at higher rates than the treatment-as-usual group and, over the course of four years, the majority of consumers placed by both Housing First agencies were able to maintain permanent, independent housing. Results also highlight that providers new to Housing First must be aware of ways in which their practices may deviate from the essential features of Housing First, particularly with respect to enrolling eligible consumers on a first-come, first-served basis and separating clinical issues from tenant or housing responsibilities. Finally, other aspects of successfully implementing a Housing First program are discussed. (Authors)

Implementing an Evidence-Based Practice: Seeking Safety Group

2009-05-06T01:42:42

This article presents findings from a multisite study on adopting and implementing an evidence-based practice, Seeking Safety, for women with co-occurring disorders and experiences of physical and sexual abuse. It focuses on what implementation decisions different sites made to optimize the compatibility of Seeking Safety with the site's needs and experiences and on issues posed by Rogers (1995) as relevant to successful diffusion of an innovative practice. A total of 157 clients and 32 clinicians reported on satisfaction with various aspects of the model. Cross-site differences are also examined. Results show that Seeking Safety appears to be an intervention that clinicians perceive as highly relevant to their practice, and one that adds value. Clients perceive the treatment as uniquely touching on their needs in a way that previous treatments had not (Authors).

Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT)

2009-04-06T10:58:25

Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) is an empirically-supported treatment for conduct-disordered young children that places emphasis on improving the quality of the parent-child relationship and changing parent-child interaction patterns. In PCIT, parents are taught specific skills to establish a nurturing and secure relationship with their child while increasing their child’s prosocial behavior and decreasing negative behavior. This treatment focuses on two basic interactions: Child Directed Interaction (CDI) is similar to play therapy in that parents engage their child in a play situation with the goal of strengthening the parent-child relationship; Parent Directed Interaction (PDI) resembles clinical behavior therapy in that parents learn to use specific behavior management techniques as they play with their child. (Authors)