This book provides social workers, outreach clinicians, case managers, and concerned community members with a pretreatment guide for assisting homeless couples, youth, and single adults. The inter-relationship between Homeless Outreach and Housing First is examined in detail to inform program development and hands on practice.
Pretreatment Guide for Homeless Outreach & Housing First shares five detailed case studies from the field to elucidate effective ways of helping and to demonstrate how the most vulnerable among us can overcome trauma and homelessness.
Readers will:
Expand their assessment skills and discover new interventions for helping people who have experienced long-term or chronic homelessness. Understand and be able to integrate the stages of common language construction with their own practice. Learn about the positive measurable impact of a Housing First approach and its moral, fiscal, and quality of life implications. Understand how to better integrate program policy and supervision with Homeless Outreach & Housing First initiatives. Learn how to utilize a Pretreatment Approach with couples, youth, and unaccompanied adults experiencing untreated major mental illness and addiction. "Jay S. Levy's book is essential reading to both people new to the movement to end homelessness and folks who have been in the trenches for many years. Learn how to do effective outreach with the chronic homeless population, and the ins and outs of the Housing First model. The personal stories and the success cases will give inspiration to work even harder to help both individuals and for ending homelessness in your community."
Michael Stoops, Director of Community Organizing
National Coalition for the Homeless, Washington, DC Learn more at www.JaySLevy.com Another empowering book from Loving Healing Press www.LovingHealing.comJay S. Levy has spent more than thirty years working with individuals who experience homelessness. He is the author of the highly acclaimed book Pretreatment Guide for Homeless Outreach & Housing First (2013), which is now available as a newly revised edition. Jay edited and wrote several chapters in two collaborative efforts with several authors from the US and UK. They are entitled Cross-Cultural Dialogues on Homelessness: From Pretreatment Strategies to Psychologically Informed Environments (2018) and Pretreatment Across Multiple Fields of Practice: Trauma-Informed Approach to Homelessness and Beyond (2024).Jay developed Pretreatment as an approach for helping people with¬out homes who are often deemed "not ready" and excluded from housing and/or recovery-oriented services and treatment. While working with Eliot CHS Homeless Services, Jay has helped to create new Housing First programs such as the Regional Engagement and Assessment for Chronically Homeless program (REACH).Jay has achieved formal recognition from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Mental Health for his past efforts to help underserved homeless individuals through his direct service, clinical supervision of staff, and program development. Jay received his MSW degree in clinical social work from Columbia University in 1988.Jay lives in Western MA with his wife, Louise, who recently celebrated retirement after more than thirty years of teaching high school science, and was kind enough to provide valuable assistance in editing this book. Jay is very proud and excited for his daughters, Talia and Sara, who have both graduated college and have embraced journeys into career-related activities and beyond.More information on Jay's consultative work, presentations, and publications can be found at www.jayslevy.com
