Facebook Live Recap: Demystifying the Data
On May 20, we hosted our inaugural Facebook Live event: Ending Youth Homeless in Austin – Demystifying the Data.
In case you missed the stream, watch the full event below.
In this virtual event, Susan McDowell, LifeWorks Chief Executive Officer, and Liz Schoenfeld, Ph.D., Chief Research & Evaluation Officer, have an in-depth discussion about the progress that has been made in the movement to end youth homelessness in Austin.
From this conversation, we learned:
One of LifeWorks most recent successes is the high level of system coordination among service providers the organization achieved in a relatively short amount of time. Instead of community providers operating in silos, we have collaborated and now function as an integrated whole. As a result, since October 2018 we have helped 490 youth transition to permanent housing. Of those, 273 were served by LifeWorks.
COVID-19 has certainly presented challenges for nearly every organization, but it has also driven momentum. The pace of serving youth during this time has not slowed and in fact, we have accelerated efforts. With incredible creativity and commitment from staff, we quickly pivoted to provide services remotely that include social distance move-ins. In March and April alone, we have transitioned 76 youth into permanent housing.
Data surrounding homelessness is notoriously complex. We have 3 key sources of data used to speak to the scale of youth homelessness in Austin: 1) Point in Time Count (PIT Count) 2) By-name List 3) Homeless Management Information System (HMIS)
Dr. Liz Schoenfeld designed a targeted assertive outreach program, which is a systemized approach to reach out to individuals in HMIS. The goal was to determine if they are still in need of services or if they have self-resolved. As a result of this process, LifeWorks reached out to 350 youth and discovered that a large amount had self-resolved and were eligible to have their records closed. From January 2019 to January 2020, the scale of youth homelessness in our local database decreased by 28 percent. Because of these efforts, we have some of the cleanest HMIS data in the country for youth homelessness.
With the momentum created over the last few months and our approach to data with scientific rigor, we are still on track to end youth homelessness in Austin by the end of 2020.
We hope this is the first of many virtual chats designed to keep us connected and informed on LifeWorks strategy that drives our efforts in ending youth homelessness.
What topic would you like to see us discuss next? Comment below and let us know!
