Saturday, 15 January 2005 - 10:00 AM

This presentation is part of: Services for Homeless Persons

Intensive Case Management with Hard to Place Homeless Families: A Pilot Test of the Community Case Management Program

Purpose: Initiated in the fall of 2002, the Community Case Management (CCM) program is an intervention that helps “hard to place” homeless families exiting emergency shelters obtain the support they need to eventually obtain permanent housing. This program was developed to address the need for intensive case managers to help homeless families navigate what is often a confusing and complex continuum of care once they leave the shelter system. As we have seen over the past 18 months, when provided with community case management, clients do not have to “start over” at every new shelter or supportive services program. The case manager maintains contact with the family for up to one year and coordinates services with the staff members of other agencies within the community that the client accesses. The case manager has a low caseload, therefore she has been able to provide more “face time” with families than shelter staff. In this way, the CCM program benefits individual shelter programs by reducing caseloads. The CCM program was designed as the first phase of a pilot program to explore the value, effectiveness, and benefits of such a position.

Methods: The sample for this study was drawn from homeless families who sought emergency shelter services through an ecumenical shelter program in a southern city. Families who met the criteria as “hard to place” were asked to volunteer for the study. These families have issues that complicate efforts to secure long-term housing. Families were assigned at random to an intervention or comparison condition. Twenty-seven families were assigned to the intervention and 26 were assigned to the comparison condition. Most of the families were headed by single women (67.9%) and nearly 83% were African-American. Measures on family functioning, children’s behaviors, and family resources were taken prior to intervention and approximately 4 months later. Those in the intervention condition received intensive case management services once they exited the emergency shelter. Those in the comparison condition did not receive intensive case management services, but were contacted to obtain posttest measures. Small incentives were provided for participation.

Results: Children in the intervention condition fared significantly better on externalizing behaviors than children in the comparison group. Although families in the intervention condition reported significantly worse housing conditions at pretest, there were no significant differences between the groups at posttest. Further, families in the intervention condition reported more time for their children, greater public assistance and increased ability to talk with someone about their problems from pretest to posttest. Families in the intervention condition also reported significantly better communication and cohesion than families in the comparison condition. Families in the comparison condition reported significantly worse family cohesion from pretest to posttest.

Implications for Practice: These findings are encouraging and suggest that intensive case management services for hard to place homeless families may help them to access resources, obtain supportive feedback, and establish family cohesion that may enable them to function more effectively in this stressful period. Additional long term studies are needed.

See more of Services for Homeless Persons
See more of Oral and Poster

See more of Celebrating a Decade of SSWR (January 13 - 16, 2005)