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New Healing Hands Explores the Roles of Harm Reduction in Caring for People Without Homes
At its core, harm reduction is just that—principles and practices aimed at reducing harm and negative impacts of substance use. However, the principles of harm reduction go well beyond programs that work exclusively with people with substance use disorders and are relevant to many different aspects of clinical practice.
Our Spring issue of Healing Hands explores the many facets of harm reduction, as well as specific ways these principles can be integrated into various settings that provide health care for people experiencing homelessness. Learn how providers at Health Care for the Homeless health centers, homeless shelters, sobering centers, outreach programs, and drop-in centers use trauma-informed harm reduction strategies to care for vulnerable populations.
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| Also on Harm Reduction: Don’t miss the “Harm Reduction: Preparing People for Change” course in our COVID-19 Online Learning Series with the National Alliance to End Homelessness. The harm reduction course is one of seven learning opportunities providing guidance for communities as they navigate their COVID-19 responses.
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Introducing Our COVID-19 Data Dashboard for Health Care for the Homeless
As HRSA collects data on how COVID-19 is impacting health centers, the Council is extracting and processing this data to highlight how health centers serving patients experiencing housing instability, homelessness, and poverty are particularly impacted by, and responding to, the pandemic.
Our new COVID-19 Data Dashboard features comparative data on testing results, testing capacity, clinic closures, telehealth visits, and virus disparity by race and ethnicity from health centers, health centers with only 330(h) funding, and all health centers with 330(h) funding. More national health center data is available on HRSA's website. New health center COVID-19 data is collected weekly, and we will continue to update these figures as new data emerges.
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Informing Science: COVID-19 Testing Among Homeless Populations
Have you been involved with homeless shelter or encampment testing events in your local community? We need your help to inform the national response to COVID-19! The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National HCH Council are partnering to collect data on COVID-19 testing events among homeless populations. We aim to better understand the impact of COVID-19 on this vulnerable group and to inform future public health actions.
People without homes are often overlooked and undercounted in public health initiatives. We want to change that, but we need your data to advance an effective and humane response to COVID-19. Add one entry per universal testing event to our data collection tool. Please also forward the link to others in your community who are also conducting broad testing in this population in order to obtain as much data as possible to inform future guidance.
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This Friday's COVID Coffee Chat Will Examine Self-Care & Resilience for Frontline ProvidersFriday, May 22 | 12-1 p.m. CT
Even before the pandemic, homeless health care providers suffered from high rates of burn-out, stress, and vicarious trauma. What does it mean to build resiliency and find time for self-care during a public health crisis?
Join our next COVID Coffee Chat to learn from experienced homeless health care clinicians and other front-line staff members as they discuss strategies and tools for staying mentally sound and taking care of themselves during even tougher times than usual. Get a head start on the conversation: listen to our podcast on self-care and resiliency with one of our panelists.
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Upcoming COVID-19 Coffee Chat: Compounding Oppression: Antiracism in COVID-19 ResponseTuesday, May 26 | 12-1 p.m. CT
Structural racism permeates the systems that perpetuate homelessness—especially the health care industry—and the homelessness response system itself. It is little surprise, then, that we are witnessing a disproportionate impact on Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color in the COVID-19 outbreak, communities already plagued by housing insecurity. How can the HCH field respond, and what should we have been doing already?
Join us for Tuesday's COVID Coffee Chat to explore these questions with a panel largely comprising representatives from the Council's Learning Collaboratives on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. We invite your contributions to enhance our problem-sharing and peer support.
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Explore Data Collection and Outcome Measures in Medical Respite Care in Our WebinarWednesday, May 27: 12-1 p.m. CT
Medical respite care is an essential component of the continuum of care for people without homes, yet it is still a fairly recent addition to homeless health care. Clearly defined outcome measures and data collection protocols are imperative to help programs demonstrate value and positive impact.
Please join us next week to hear from presenters as they share lessons learned from a year-long learning collaborative centered around promising practices in data collection and outcome measures in medical respite care.
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Browse Our Redesigned COVID-19 Resources
We have now updated our online COVID-19 Resources with a simpler, more user-friendly layout. Browse federal, national, and local guidance sorted by topic on our page, and please check back often—we are updating these resources continuously as new resources emerge from our field.
Have feedback on the redesigned resources? Let us know! Additionally, if you know of guidance relevant to the Health Care for the Homeless community that is not represented in our resources, please contact us.
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Council Seeking New Clinical Director
We are now seeking a qualified clinical leader to work collaboratively on and at times lead initiatives focused on improving the health of homeless populations and optimizing the delivery of quality primary care.
As the Council's Clinical Director, you will serve as the behavioral and medical subject matter expert for contracts with HRSA’s Center for Excellence (COE) for Behavioral Health Technical Assistance (BHTA), National Cooperative Agreements, and other entities. Learn more about the position and how to apply on our website.
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New Blog Post: Racial Justice During Crises: COVID Will Show You Whether It’s a Priority
By Technical Assistance Manager Michael Durham
...how you behave in times of stress is a better test of character than when you’re at leisure. This is the case for racial justice during this pandemic. A national leader on poverty and racism, Marc Dones, said it better than I could: “If equity is only your priority in times of ease and surplus then it was never really your priority.”
If we are shelving whatever work we were doing on racial equity before the coronavirus outbreak, that shows us we were conceptualizing it as an initiative, something that can, in fact, be put on the backburner. The work of dismantling institutional racism within our organizations must in fact institutionalize antiracism...
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Recent COVID-19 Coffee Chat Webinars Now Available
The Council continues to host COVID-19 Coffee Chats every Tuesday and Friday from 12-1 p.m. CT on critical issues facing people without homes and HCH providers and staff during this pandemic. If you missed any of our latest sessions or would like to review what you learned, you can access archived videos and slides on our website:
Archived slides from Tuesday's webinar will be posted soon, and all of our past COVID-19 webinars are available on our COVID Coffee Chats page.
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Recent Council Publications:
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| May 20, 2020 | Volume 2, Issue 21 | Archives
Copyright © 2020 National Health Care for the Homeless Council
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