Coordinating Your Coordinated Entry System

Introduction of Panelists

• Kathy Kinard – WA State Dept. of Commerce

• Chris Morton – Associated Ministries (Pierce County)

• Nate Marti – Snohomish County (Office of Housing, Homelessness, and Community Development)

• Emily Nolan – Building Changes

Setting the Context

Commonly Used Terms

• Coordinated Entry• Coordinated Intake• Centralized Intake• Screening Tool• Common Assessment

Consolidated Homeless Grants

Expectations from the Dept. of Commerce

Each Lead Grantee must have (and coordinate with Sub Grantees) a uniform method of client intake which may be customized for families or single adults, etc.  There must at the very least be a common tool at intake that consistently screens for eligibility and need for housing and services (including type and intensity). 

A Lead Grantee may phase-in their Coordinated Entry; however, all Lead and Sub Grantees must have a system in-place by December 31, 2014.

Commerce is working to develop a more comprehensive Coordinated Entry policy for CHG Lead and Sub Grantees.  As we increase our knowledge on this best practice, we will provide supporting documents and training. 

What problem(s) are we trying to solve?

• Multiple (and independent) points of entry into the system that makes finding housing difficult and increases time homeless

• Lack of coordination and communication (silos) among local agencies

• Unfair, inefficient or ineffective  distribution of scarce resources

Why do we care if communities are implementing coordinated

intake systems?• We care about the homeless person or person at

risk of homelessness getting the best service possible and ending or preventing their homelessness as soon as possible

• We care about getting the right intervention, at the right level of intensity, to the right client

• We care that clients are not getting turned away for being “hard to serve”

• We care about communities continually improving their methods of reducing and ending homelessness – we care about results

What’s the best way to do it?

• Identify all stakeholders and include them in discussions

• Establish the shared vision of the ideal coordinated intake system

• Assess the existing system(s) that perform intake of clients

• Identify the gaps that exist between the existing system and the shared vision

• Fill the gaps with best practices, some suggestions are (not all will be used):

o Single real-time database of client information

o Data sharing agreements & participation agreements

o “One-stop shopping” or “One phone call to get housed”

o Single assessment form

o Shared bed reservation system

o Triage

o “Packages” of standard care

Building community that is humane, compassionate and just.

Our service model

Prevention at the Heart of it ALL

Advisory GroupOutreachIntake Triage and AssessmentPreventionNavigationData Gathering

Single PointOf Entry

682-3401 Dedicated

Line

800#

Triage

Co-Locations

Public Benefit Portals

Service StatisticsMarch 2011

3,230 duplicated calls1,865 unduplicated calls579 screenings completed1,286 not screened

493 Scheduled Assessments362 Completed Assessments

Staffing: 2.5 Screeners 4.5 Assessors

Service StatisticsFebruary 2011

???? Duplicated calls1,971 unduplicated calls730 screenings completed1,241 not screened

314 Scheduled Assessments232 Completed Assessments

Staffing: 2.0 Screeners 5.0 Assessors

Greg Claycamp, DirectorHousing and Shelter Services

Associated Ministries

gregc@associatedministries.org253-383-3056 X119

Snohomish County

Community Case Management: Lessons Learned

What is Community Case Management (CCM)?

CCM was a phone based single point of entry for emergency shelter and transitional housing in Snohomish County.

What Were the Core Functions of CCM?

• Provide a single point of entry for homeless households seeking emergency shelter or transitional housing.

• Develop and support a phone and web-based system accessible to all community housing providers

• To eliminate individual agency waitlists for access to shelter and transitional housing

• To capture unduplicated client data for those in need of emergency housing

• To use the data to identify the need and leverage that information in efforts to continue developing housing options for all populations in our community

Who Utilized CCM?

• Agencies/Users: The bulk of the CCM users were agencies providing shelter and transitional housing to families with children.o The system could serve individuals and households without

children, but the majority of placements were families.

• Clients: Clients of CCM included currently homeless and at risk of homeless households (those who have a reason to believe they will be homeless in the next 30 days).

• Over the 3 year period, 71% of households on the list were households with children and 29% were households without children. Of the families with children, 61% were single women with children and 20% were couples with children. Of the households without children, 81% were single females and 12% were single males.

Benefits of CCM

• Households in need of housing had one phone number to call as opposed to running around to 4-6 different agencies for placement on waitlists.

• Agency staff did not have to spend anytime managing a waitlist for their units. Provided more staff time for focusing on services.

• CCM staff could refer households to other services where needed and available (facilitated referral). A couple examples include: clients aged 65 and over were referred to Senior Services of Snohomish County and clients in need of eviction prevention services were referred to the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Programs.

• This initiative provided invaluable lessons learned for our community’s next steps in creating an effective coordinated entry.

CCM Lessons Learned

• Assess households to be served based on level of need and NOT just time-stamped order.

• With Coordinated Entry, include prevention and diversion programs so that, where possible, you are preventing homeless-ness and/or rapidly re-housing clients into permanent housing.

• Expand beyond a “phone-in” only system. o Consider geographically diverse locations where walk-ins are

allowed and outreach is a component of the system. Justification – there are some households who are not comfortable providing their information to “strangers” over the phone. Snohomish County has specific service providers who, if tied to coordinated entry, would be valuable partners considering they have trusting relationships with many of the same households who might have issues calling a phone number.

CCM Lessons Learned (Continued)

• Do not create a log jam at the front door by asking too many questionso The average intake lasted 15-20 minutes. Not all of the

information collected was used to determine eligibility for programs or being used as data to leverage other opportunities (i.e. community reports on need).

• Do not create difficult barriers for households to stay on a coordinated waitlist. o Households were required to check-in every two weeks. If they

did not check-in, they were purged from the list. 71% of the clients throughout the 3 year initiative were dropped from the list because of not checking in.

• Adjust business hours so that working families/individuals can speak with a live person.o Also allow for specific referral points available to households who

call after hours.

CCM Lessons Learned (Continued)

• Provide support for those waiting for housing (Even if your anticipated wait time is short in duration, develop a viable plan to begin providing some form of case management).

o Community Case Management never got to Phase III which would assign case managers to households on the list.

• Use one system – CCM and HMIS were separate web-based programs that did not “talk” with each other. Created difficult analysis and double data entry for staff involved.

Next Steps in Snohomish County

• Coordinated Intakeo As CCM began shutting down the services (due to funding),

housing providers and County staff created a new, simple system that spread the responsibilities to multiple agencies as opposed to one single entity. This product is called Coordinated Intake.

o Key points of Coordinated Intake§ Simple

Ø 8 question intake that gets to the basicsØ Minimal data entry in HMIS

o Multiple access points§ Spreads responsibility to multiple agencies

o No individualized waitlistso Collects important information on level of need in the communityo Evolving project

§ Community agreed to start with a very basic approach

Next Steps in Snohomish County (Cont’d)

• Investing in Families Coordinated Entry Pilot Projecto Through the Investing in Families Initiative, the Coordinated

Entry Pilot Project will begin on July 1, 2011. This project will focus on families.

o Key elements of this project § Prevention: aimed at keeping families on the edge of homelessness

housed and linked with appropriate services.

§ Rapid Housing: aimed at helping families stabilize in permanent housing whenever possible.

§ Co-locations – pilot will test an urban setting and a rural setting.

Next Steps in Snohomish County (Cont’d)

o Key elements of this project (Cont’d)§ Staff will consist of:

Ø Coordinated Entry Specialist - will utilize the Coordinated Entry Tool developed by the Investing in Families Partnership to determine the tier of service needs and entity to which the family is to be referred on, ideally, the same day.

Ø Housing Resource Specialist - will provide immediate prevention and/or immediate housing services to Tier I (high need) families referred by the Coordinated Entry Specialist

Ø Navigator – will be the broker of all other services for the families utilizing existing mainstream systems/programs whenever possible.

• Ongoing planning effortso Through the continued planning efforts around Coordinated

Intake and the IIF Coordinated Entry Pilot, our community will use current and past lessons learned to build an effective system for our clients.

Small Group Discussion

Discussion Questions

• Who (else) needs to be involved in creating a system in your community?

• What is currently in place, what works?

Wrap Up & Contact Info

Kathy Kinard – WA State Dept. of Commerceü kathy.kinard@commerce.wa.gov or (360) 725-2939

Chris Morton – Associated Ministriesü chrism@associatedministries.org or (253) 383-3056 x102

Nate Marti – Snohomish County Office of Housing, Homelessness, and Community Developmentü nate.marti@co.snohomish.wa.us or 425-388-3268

Emily Nolan – Building Changesü emily.nolan@buildingchanges.org or 206-805-6136