Counseling Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Youth

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Raising Standards Improving Outcomes for
Independent Living Services
6/14/00
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Raising Standards and Improving Outcomes for
Independent Living Services

• What do I mean by standards?
• What do I mean by outcomes?

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Independent Living Standards of Practice

• New IDL legislation sponsored by sen. Moynihan
  spurred a great deal of discussion and
  deliberation
• CWLA convened a national IDL standards committee
  which met in 1987
• Standards were developed in 1987, and adopted by
  CWLA membership in 1988

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Independent Living Standards of Practice

• Introduction
• Preparation for self-sufficiency
• The context for IDL services
• In the spirit of permanence
• The role of the family
• The role of communities and agencies

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Independent Living Standards of Practice

• Framework
• Basic assumptions
• Basic definition of IDL
• Identification of target group
• Goals for IDL services

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Independent Living Standards of Practice

• Basic assumptions that agencies do what a good
  parent would do for their adolescent child a
  clearly stated written plan a continuum of
  support services are needed this is a process
  that takes place over time

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Independent Living Standards of Practice

• Basic definition of IDL consists of a series of
  developmental activities that provide
  opportunities for young people to gain the skills
  required to live healthy, productive, and
  responsible lives as self-sufficient adults

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Independent Living Standards of Practice

• Target group youth who are separated from their
  homes and are in need of the development of
  skills required to live healthy, productive, and
  responsible lives as self-sufficient adults
  including youth who are homeless in out-of-home
  care developmentally disabled without family
  resources and those living in temporary residence

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Independent Living Standards of Practice

• Goals for IDL services the primary goal is to
  provide young people with developmental skills
  necessary for them to live healthy, productive,
  self-sufficient, and responsible adult lives

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Coordinated Service Delivery System to Support
Independent Living Standards

• Social work services
• Educational services
• Employment services
• Health services

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Assessment Development of a IDL Plan

• Assessment of strengths and needs
• A written IDL plan
• Case review

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Building Skills for Independent Living

• Self assessment of strengths and needs
• Identifying and defining own problems
• Establishing goals and planning for the future

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Building Skills for Independent Living

• Obtaining factual information about familys
  medical, personal, medical, and social history
• Understanding and coping with past losses,
  rejection, and anger
• Understanding and coping with authority figures

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Building Skills for Independent Living

• Developing basic survival skills
• Developing money management skills
• Responsibility for sexual behavior
• Understanding chemical dependency
• Developing skills in personal decision-making

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Building Skills for Independent Living

• Locating, obtaining, and maintaining a residence
• Locating and using community resources to meet
  individual needs
• Forming meaningful and growth-producing adult
  relationships with families, peers, and other
  persons

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Continuum of Residential Services for Independent
Living

• Biological family/fictive kin
• Least restrictive out-of-home placement
• Kinship foster care
• Emergency shelter care

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Continuum of Residential Services for Independent
Living

• Family foster care
• Agency operated boarding homes
• Group homes
• Supervised independent living programs

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Continuum of Residential Services for Independent
Living

• Group residence
• Congregate care campus
• Residential treatment centers - RTC
• Residential treatment facilities - RTF
• Juvenile detention/lock up/jail

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Whats Missing?

• Development of relationships
• Interpersonal skills
• Reality of costs
• Reality of mental illness for some youth
• Core concepts of youth development
• What else?

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Outcomes

• Designs Methods
• Exploratory quantitative
• Descriptive qualitative
• Experimental mixed

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Outcomes

• Elements of Research
• The research question
• Data design
• Expense/costs/time/personnel
• Data collection strategy
• Data analysis
• Presentation of data
• Findings

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Outcomes

• The 4 Rs
• 1. Replicability
• 2. Rigor
• 2. Representativeness
• 3. Relative costs

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Outcomes

• Sample
• 1. Size
• 2. Representativeness
• 3. Operational definitions

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Outcomes

• Sampling Procedures
• Random
• Snowball
• Purposeful
• Convenience

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Outcomes

• Instrumentation
• Questionnaires
• Interview schedules
• Observation
• Standardized tests (reliability/validity)

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Outcomes

• Time Frames
• What can you count?
• Can it be counted at multiple points in time?
• At baseline, beginning of service
• After intervention at six month intervals
• At follow-up

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Outcomes

• Data Analysis
• What did you find?
• What does it mean?
• How is it useful to young people and programs?

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Outcomes

• Data Analysis
• How do we know that we are doing works?
• How do we evaluate and monitor outcomes?
• What the hell is C.Q.I.?
• What have you done and could it have been done
  better?

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Outcomes

• Data Analysis
• Client/customer satisfaction
• How can you show that you have moved youth toward
  self-sufficiency?
• How do you monitor the interpersonal/soft skills?

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Recommendations

• Start simple what can you do in your own
  program?
• How can you solicit client input?
• How can you focus on continuous quality
  improvement of IDL services?
• Ask yourself are the youth in your programs
  truly prepared for self-sufficiency?

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Recommendations

• Ask yourself
• What have we missed in working with our youth?
• If this child was my child, what would I wish for
  him or her to have?

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Conclusions

• Standards are good, only if they are known and
  only if they can be achieved
• Evaluation of programs and measuring outcomes is
  a necessary and essential part of IDL program
  planning and design
• There are ways to do both and still provide a
  great program which helps to develop youth to
  their fullest potential