This week's introduction

This is section 2 of a series focusing on specific types of agencies. We already covered shelters, and next week we will cover light touch services.

In this section, we're going to learn about the modules most relevant for Housing First, Rapid Re-Housing, and other similar program. In particular, we're going to look at Housing Placements, Case Management, and Assessments like the VI-SPDAT, SPDAT, and VAT.

We're going to have a specific focus on some of the things that housing-based case management staff do. If you're planning to convene your HIFIS Advisory Group to discuss this section's lessons, the topics primarily concern housing programs, so representatives from other agencies may not need to participate in the discussion.

A brief note: we're also going to be covering Housing Loss Prevention, which is a module that will be used by eviction prevention programs and similar. We know that this is most likely a different group than those that do Housing First and Rapid Re-Housing, but the Housing Loss Prevention module is very similar to the Housing Placement module, so it makes sense to learn about them both together. However, when you're meeting with your partner agencies, you might choose to meet with your eviction prevention programs separately from Housing First and Rapid Re-Housing.

Using This Section

First, read the Module Overview lessons for the chapters in this section (Assessments, Case Management, Housing Placements, Housing Loss Prevention). This will give you a grounded understanding of what the module is all about. You may dismiss some modules out of hand, thinking that you will never use that module, or at least that it's not relevant to your learning right now.

Once you have a good idea of what the modules do, for the modules you are interested in learning more about, go ahead and read the Data Fields lesson, and sometimes there will be some extra lessons talking about specific features that are unique to the module you are learning about. For example, the Admissions module has a specific lesson about the Bed Availability feature.

Next, we suggest you visit your development site and play around with the module. Click on some buttons, check out the drop-down menus, save some fake data, and see how the workflow behaves. Reading about a module is no substitute for first-hand experience.

After that, come back to your lessons and read up about Data Sharing and User Rights. You can also come back to the Data Fields lesson to learn more about each field. These are pretty boring lessons, we know, so it's best to look at them when you are thinking about specific questions like "who will have access to the Reason for Service information?" and "how can I customize the list of case Goals?"

You should also read the Tips & Tricks lesson that is provided for most modules - this often provides suggestions for things to think about and how to make the module work best for your community. Not all modules have Tips & Tricks, especially if they aren't commonly used.

Finally, now that you have a good understanding of the modules, come back to this Chapter and take a look at the Group Activity. This has suggestions for how to manage a discussion with your partner agencies about this section's topic. You'll need to present the information you learned to your partner agencies and get some meaningful feedback, and ultimately decide which staff need what permissions in HIFIS 4.

The very last thing you'll do, after your Group Activity, is to fill out the Worksheet, that will actually include the rights you've chosen for your staff roles.

Reference Materials

• HIFIS 4 User Guide, pages 44-47, 53-59, 61-63, 65-67