Neighborhood Housing and Care Project (NHCP)

Our Social Work department will be taking on a new BSW student starting in the Fall. She will be working primarily in the residential program.  One of our Social Workers is running a Music Appreciation group every 2 months, open to both Our House residents and clients of NHCP. Staff are invited.

Social workers are continuing their group for NHCP clients called “Self-Compassion Group.” It is a group discussion, supportive in nature, and focusing on the concept of Radical Acceptance. It has been very successful, with many clients sharing and making connections and friendships with one another.

Due to the rising pressures on landlords to increase their rents in order to sustain their business, several of our housing subsidy clients are being pushed out of their apartments due to being over allowances within the FMA (Fair Market Rent). This is putting a great burden on NHCP clinicians to search for housing in a short amount of time—and affordable housing opportunities are limited. Cascade AIDS Project is assisting us with advocating and searching. We currently have 2 clients who will need to leave their apartments after several years of living there, one of them has been there for almost 6 years. The team is scrambling to find them a place to live, but their great efforts so far have produced hardly any options. The landlord is allowing an additional 2-3 month stay until something can be found.

Caregiver Education

Clinical Directors met for a several times with a training consultant.  He offered some basic “Training the trainer” strategies, which was insightful and will be helpful when we begin offering these trainings. We have not begun discussing implementation, but instead are working on a list of topics that all disciplines would like to see covered. The focus remains on developing “101 Quick Fact sheets” for three primary topics: HIV transmission/prevention, Professional Boundaries, and Intervening in a Mental Health crisis. Our “homework” for last month was to explore what trainings are already available in the community that we can “tap” into, and this was successful; however there is more work that needs to be done—more research, so that in October we can begin the writing.

April showers changed our plans to cruise around the Rhododendron Garden but it didn’t get in the way of our AMAZING resident/client art show! A huge success this year.  We had a great turnout of guests over the 2 day display of fabulous creations of all mediums. Artists mingled and

chatted with guests during the open reception and enjoyed all the well-deserved accolades for their artistic expressions. This year’s theme was “inspiring wellness through creativity”, a constant theme we carry throughout the OT department in our work. Thank you to all who attended.

Residents had a great time buying goods at the dollar store and a total blast at Wunderland Arcade to play all kinds of games and win prizes.

OT Amanda Moore returned to show us how to make paper – we made some amazing pieces AND we helped make kick a** decorations for the volunteer appreciation party.

Our Social Work department is currently interviewing for students, to start in Fall 2014! Victor Boomer-Jenks is running a Music Appreciation group every 2 months, open to both Our House residents and clients of NHCP - even staff are invited. Victor and Athena are continuing their group for both OH residents and NHCP clients called “Coming to Acceptance”. It is a group discussion, supportive in nature, and focusing on the concept of Radical Acceptance.

Pacific University did an evaluation of the NHCP Team and presented the results to the community and our staff last month. We also have hired consultants from OHSU to do a formal Program Evaluation for us for reporting to the State and other providers.

Between the months of April and the end of June we saw the following grant processes for grants specifically for the purpose of our NHCP program.

Applied

Collins Foundation: $35,000 NHCP Expansion

Pending

Hoover Family Foundation: $5,000 NHCP

CMS Healthcare Innovation NHCP expansion $2 million

OCF: $30,000 NHCP Expansion

Applied/Declined

Spirit Mountain Community Fund (LOI): $25,000 NHCP

Awarded

OCF: $15,000 NHCP Expansion