Research Note: Establishing a trusting relationship between the outreach worker and the homeless person is essential for successful outreach. Engagement is often an ongoing, long-term process, during which the outreach worker builds trust with the person with the goal of linking him or her to needed health, mental health, substance abuse, social, and housing services. Engagement and assessment occur simultaneously and are essentially the same process.

PA-OS 2.02

Outreach workers assess the individual’s:

safety, including potentially life-threatening situations;
immediate needs;
level of functioning;
overall mental and physical health; and
strengths and capacities, including the capacity for making decisions.

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	PURPOSE: Outreach Services engage homeless individuals and families as a first step to accepting care for immediate health and safety needs, using services and resources, including housing resources, and taking steps to become integrated into the community.

RELATED FILES

PA-OS Reference List.pdf
NA Request.doc
PA_OS Template.doc


	OUTREACH Contact initiated by a provider to identify persons in need of services, to provide information to them about services and benefits, and to encourage the use of appropriate services.


	SERVICE One or more organization-operated programs or activities that have a common general objective and deploy the organization's material and human resources in a planned and systematic manner. An organization that publicly promotes or identifies itself in writing as offering a service, is licensed to deliver a service, assigns personnel and/or space to a service, or allocates financial resources to a service is considered to offer that service.


	COMMUNITY A specific group of people living in the same locality and who may share a common culture, values, and norms. Communities can also be defined by race, religion, ethnicity, age, occupation, political status, tribal affiliation, interest in particular problems or outcomes, or other common bonds. The term "community" encompasses worksites, schools, tribes, residential neighborhoods, business districts, recreational areas, and health and human service sites.


	ASSESSMENT An evaluation, which utilizes professional expertise and skills in the collection and analysis of data to understand and describe the nature of service needs of an individual, family, or group. Assessment, as in needs assessment, is also used to determine priorities of program planning and service development for the organization as a whole. See also DIAGNOSIS.


	FAMILY Two or more people who consider themselves family and who assume obligations, functions, and responsibilities generally essential to healthy family life. Child care and child socialization, income support, long-term care, and other caregiving are among the functions of family life. The definition of "family" will rest with an individual's indication of who plays a family member role, including current or former foster family, adoptive family, extended family members, fictive kin, or significant others. Organizations that believe family is the central constellation in a child's life, and that family attachments are of primary importance for human development, will strive to work with professional staff to develop a common understanding of "family."


	CONFIDENTIALITY An ethical and practice principle that requires the protection of information shared within a professional-client relationship. An organization that upholds confidentiality prohibits personnel from disclosing information about persons served without their written consent.


	SUBSTANCE ABUSE The misuse of a chemical substance in a manner that is detrimental to an individual's physical or mental health.