FY22 CDBG PROPOSAL
CARES Pandemic-Related Programs, Services, and Outreach Reducing Frequent Non-Emergency 911 Calls
A Community-Centered Response
A. COVER LETTER
1. Agency contact
Geoff Corbin, President & CEO, Cathedral City Senior Center 37137 W. Buddy Rogers Ave., Cathedral City, CA 92234, 760-321-1548 o, 404-759-8443 c, [email protected], www.theccsc.org
2. The purpose of the organization
Since 1980, Cathedral City Senior Center (CCSC) has provided for the needs of Cathedral City's seniors, their families, and caregivers. We proudly serve Cathedral City residents and seniors in bordering cities regarding their aging issues; healthy aging in place, as well as broader nutritional and crisis needs ; access to free motel vouchers, provision of emergency meal kits, grocery store, and gas station gift cards; and access to CVRM, APS, and a network of resources throughout the valley.
CCSC offers recreation, exercise, nutrition, wellness, social opportunities, access to social services, transportation, cultural and educational experiences that prevent isolation, promote independence, healthy living, and quality of life for older adults and caregivers. Because area seniors face medical, nutritional, transportation, and financial challenges, we provide our services regardless of ability to pay. CCSC is uniquely positioned to provide services typically executed by large social services agencies and programming often offered by community centers—managed by a municipal parks department—to a broader, more diverse audience of seniors and younger city residents who makeup up Cathedral City.
CCSC is a one-stop aging resource and service center with more than 600 senior members, who might refer to CCSC as their home away from home; another 5000 older adults who routinely utilize programs and services multiple times annually; and over 40,000 people from across the valley who visit the Center annually.
Further, thousands of seniors utilize social media, virtual programming (e.g., CCSC@Home), and call or email for resources, information, and referrals.
3. Where CCSC fits in the tapestry of senior centers across Coachella Valley There are fourteen senior centers or senior center operations and initiatives within municipal community centers in Coachella Valley. Eleven are publicly funded and managed by city governments, Riverside County, or the Desert Recreation District, a special government district. For example, Indio's new multimillion- dollar senior center facility was built and is maintained by the city, and the 1.3MM+ program budget is a line item in the city budget.
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The three nonprofit senior centers are all in West valley and border one another.
The centers bordering either side of Cathedral City are Mizell Senior Center serving Palm Springs, a city of 44,000, and Joslyn Senior Center in Palm Desert, 51,000, also serving Rancho Mirage and Indian Wells.
4. Role in Cathedral City
Cathedral City is a diverse working city of 55,000 residents, with particularly high- need seniors. Also, Cathedral City is a minority -majority city . Nearly 60% of Cathedral City residents are Hispanic; therefore, we have a substant ial Spanish- speaking population. Over 40% of our residents reside in low -income census tracts. In 2021, CCSC's board of directors committed the agency to a concerted effort to serve BIPOC and marginalized communities. For instance, CCSC has an agreement with the Braille Institute that added 42 Braille members and a host of low-sight-oriented programming. The center also provides ASL and language classes, including Spanish for Spanish Speakers, teaching Spanish reading and writing.
5. Modernizing to address the Silver Tsunami – Becoming a 21st century center for active living
CCSC is modernizing to become a 21st-century community center for active living in part because the so- called 'silver tsunami' of aging Boomers is upon us. By 2050, nearly 20 percent of the United States population will be 65 or older, compared to 15 percent today. In the Coachella Valley in 2015, the number of people 60 years and older far exceeded state averages. The age brackets from 70 to 79 were 100 percent greater than the state average. Overall, 25.5 percent of Coachella Valley residents were older t han 60, while the state showed 17.5 percent. In part, these statistics are on the rise because the valley is a popular winter getaway and a major retirement destination.
As the Valley ages, CCSC is preparing for the increase in the aging population, their changing interests, needs, and how this will impact the senior center's role in providing services. We are asking the community what it will take to attract this population to the center, to be their gathering place and a vital source of entertainment, recreation, education, and arts. We want to provide the help they need to remain connected to their community, age in place, and keep active minds, spirits, and bodies.
Boomers don't see themselves at traditional senior centers. Yet, like all seniors before them, they need to remain active, with healthy minds and bodies to remain independent as long as possible. Crucially, CCSC must transform to meet the needs of the vast age span and diversity of residents in our majority-minority, low- income community. C CSC will double its membership in three years with the community outreach initiative by attracting more of Cathedral City 's Spanish - speaking majority. CCSC's outreach initiative is essential for our strategic transformation and expansion into a 21st -century community center for active living.
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6. Community outreach mandate: engaging marginalized communities
Cathedral City's Hispanic and Spanish-Speaking Communities In 2021, the senior center board of directors approved, and the agency launched a momentous outreach initiative to reflect better the communities we serve. CCSC hired a half -time Community Outreach Coordinator Alma Gutierrez thanks to a generous private seed grant . Also, the board elected our new board chair, Luz Gonzalez, in June 2021; both Luz and Alma are native Spanish speakers forming a coalition of partners to help CCSC achieve its goal of engaging the marginalized majority Hispanic and minority communities.
Currently, CCSC is planning site- based programming around Cathedral City, including the library, Dream Home Neighborhood, apartment buildings, churches, schools, and other venues. The senior center has significantly increased its Spanish-language programming on- site and in the community. Alma serves scheduled hours on- site at gathering places, such as Mountain View, Heritage View, St. Louis Catholic Church, and many others across Cathedral City, providing social services assistance and resources for Spanish speakers. [ Notably, CCSC now enjoys an outstanding partnership with St. Louis Catholic Church, mending a vital relationship.]
7. Existing pandemic-related challenges
CCSC has identified three significant challenges enhanced by the epidemic:
isolation, misinformation, and, critically, nutrition.
Isolation—a silent killer
The harmful effects of isolation are devastating. Necessary COVID -19 protocols and fear of acquiring COVID in hospitals and other medical settings delay routine care. Seniors with chronic diseases face many complications, illness, and death.
Approximately 600+ seniors experience their most meaningful sense of community at the senior center due to losing a spouse, family separation, medical, financial, and nutritional challenges. Part of the center's mission is to prevent isolation; yet, isolation is the effective strategy to contain the epidemic. While potentially lifesaving during COVID-19, isolation is also unhealthy for seniors and potentially deadly. Loneliness is an impactful risk factor with debilitating health effects, including hypertension, insom nia, depression, anxiety, and lowered immune function. There are studies comparing isolation to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
CCSC first converted basic isolation- reduction programming from space- based, center-centric to virtual gatherings and then planned a safe, phased reopening for vaccinated participants to attend programs by reservation, in limited numbers, and with safety and health protocols in place. Eventually, CCSC hopes to return to the senior community 's living room to hang out, visit, play, and share food and friendship.
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Misinformation—hurting marginalized people—CCSC access to accurate information
The 40,000+ people who call or visit the CCSC website and social media receive vetted, accurate information about COVID and COVID -related resources f rom a trusted local source.
CCSC a ccess to COVID -19 and other vaccinations (flu, pneumonia, shingles, boosters)
CCSC has conducted three vaccination events on- site and referred and provided transportation and support to multiple community vaccination sites.
Hidden victims of the pandemic: Low-income, under-served, and marginalized communities
Over 51% of CCSC participants are Cathedral City residents, and 49% are from nearby cities; they utilize CCSC's social and nutritional services disproportionately and heavily. Estimates are that Cathedral City seniors and other residents compose 80% of CCSC 's services designed for seniors in need and designed to respond to COVID-19.
Also, CCSC is at the base of a 75-unit HUD senior housing complex, Tierra del Sol (TdS), operated by Mercy Housing. TdS residents receive a lifetime CCSC membership as a part of our lease agreement . CCSC works closely with TdS to provide its residents with a convenient and comprehensive array of intensive programs and services.
CCSC is located across from a central bus terminal , near a homeless encampment, and in a low-income neighborhood. Our location provides a steady stream of low -income and unhoused people who participate in the Food Bank, request emergency food kits, grocery and gas station gift cards, motel vouchers, and require crises service interventions and referrals.
The pandemic's hidden victims require more service, not less. As just one example, the demand on CCSC for donated household goods, clothing, medical mobility, and health -related supplies—which we typically sell at very reasonable prices in quarterly rummage sale fundraisers—has increased dramatically, and we now provide free. So, in addition to the significantly enhanced nutrition and crisis referral services we offer, CCSC now provides all the above items at no cost to seniors and their families in need.
The Center does not turn away anyone due to inability to pay (e.g., more than 50% of CCSC members receive scholarships, and activity fees are on a sliding scale).
8. Senior Center Existing Responses to COVID-19
Nutrition
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The immediate transition from weekly in-person food bank shopping and daily in-house lunch dining to grab- and-go and delivery requires full use, cooling, and intense cleaning of our facility. CCSC provides a limited shopping experience with pre-packed bags, allowing quarter-room capacity for a limited shopping experience to add cold foods, meats, fresh fruit, vegetables, dairy, and bread to the dry and canned goods.
Volunteers assemble, stage, and prepare bags of food, medical mobility equipment, other health supplies, household goods, clothing, and lunches for pickup and delivery. F ixed costs of keeping the facility operating (insured, cooled, sanitized, vans driving, etc.) r emain a significant expense. Many volunteers able to work at the facility with regularity are also high-risk because of their age. Accordingly, we have purchased highly professional sanitizing defoggers and do our best to exceed public health protocols to keep them safe.
CCSC continued and expanded its daily and weekly nutrition programs in FY 2021, including multiple meals on Friday to cover the weekend . CCSC distributes more hot "grab and go" lunches than ever before, safely, to individuals who have been pre- qualified by the federal " meals on wheels " program (for which CCSC is a congregant lunch site.) The Center support s others who meet FIND requirements. FIND food bank pre-qualifies individuals based on need. The application process is not difficult; CCSC assists in completing the application. While seniors are CCSC's focus, no one in need is turned away, regardless of their age or qualifying status.
The Food Bank is open to those individuals living in the communit y's low - income HUD housing complexes in Cathedral City. Currently, most individuals reside in Mercy Housing Tierra del Sol development atop CCSC, and residents of other low-income housing complexes also attend. Transportation is an issue for non-Mercy housing residents, and CCSC is readying to receive a passenger van, a contribution resulting from Cathedral City touting the senior center as a community asset in their economic development work.
With our current aging van, and volunteers willing to utilize their vehicles, our nutrition programs currently offer limited food delivery if necessary . CCSC is poised to expand as the need expands. Recent additions to CCSC 's frozen food storage capacity allowed CCSC to provide more proteins to those in need.
FIND Food Bank provides the food for the Food Bank programs at a much- reduced cost to CCSC. Trader Joe's of Cathedral City weekly donates large quantities of perishable vegetables, bread, and other foodstuffs when the packaging is damaged in shipment. CCSC also receives weekly fresh food donations from the local Starbucks, Panera Bread, and the Grocery Outlet.
When necessary, CCSC supplements food provided by others with weekly shopping trips to retail outlets purchasing proteins and other food not provided by our suppliers.
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On Saturday and Sunday each week, the staff uses the agency van to collect food from the various retail establishments donating to CCSC. A small army of volunteers congregate at the Senior Center to assemble the food bags and prepare the Center for Monday's "grab and go" safe food distribution. Keeping the building clean and safe for these volunteers is of utmost importance, as is providing a touchless food distribution program on Mondays. A dedicated staff is critical to this program.
In 2020- 21, CCSC served 7, 400 low -income seniors and their families with nutritional services , including 4,081 through our weekly Food Bank, 3, 194 daily lunches, and hundreds of holiday meals.
Friendly Connections Wellness Check Calls
Volunteers make CCSC's Friendly Connections wellness check calls daily and weekly to homebound seniors and others who need a friendly voice. CCSC recognizes that isolation is a significant cause of medical decline for seniors, so friendly wellness calls are essential. The caller can arrange for a CCSC volunteer to run errands, pick up medication, and do other necessary out -of- house duties, which the senior is incapable of doing. We know from anecdotal evidence that these calls can also be lifesaving, identifying seniors who cannot call for help themselves. This program is supervised by staff.
Virtual Programming
Since the start of the Pandemic, CCSC has been developing a robust Virtual Program. Launched in June 2020, CCSC@Home provides a variety of programs, including cooking demonstrations, exercise and fitness classes, programs from the Palm Springs Air Museum, an art 'painting' class with supplies provided through the CC Arts Commission and SCRAP Gallery, Spanish and French classes, how to use Zoom, travel series, natural history tours and a weekly Thirsty Thursday where friends and acquaintances gather virtually for conversation and camaraderie over a glass of wine. We invested heavily in updating our capacity, i nfrastructure, brand, and reach as we launched the first phase to create a virtual senior center.
CCSC@Home offers an eclectic mix of online programming by local instructors and sharing local, regional, and national resources. As the program grows, CCSC hopes to enhance the offerings substantially and reach and offer CCSC@HomeEspanol in the next phase.
With limited digital expertise, capacity, and infrastructure, CCSC online offerings have significant room for growth and development. CCSC creates a community of digitally linked seniors who securely talk with other seniors, make friends, and create relationships. We are teaching s eniors how to: use Zoom, Skype, Google Hangouts, Facebook, take our local CCSC branded classes, use links to national content m ade accessible to them, use email and video
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chat with peers. They will be alerted to and become savvy to scammers.
CCSC@Home bridges distances—it is personal, community-based, and keeps seniors safe at home but not alone.
This programming is designed to s timulate brains. Planning each day to see what's available for viewing or participation forces people to get up, dressed, and organized. When funding is secured, the next phase will offer seniors who are part of the program unlimited technical support by p hone or online, plus Skype and email accounts.
Social Services
Partnerships and collaborations have been a foundation of CCSC's success and are integral to our goal of future sustainability. Important new alliances are in jeopardy. For example, the Joslyn Center provides various intensive wellness programs and services on -site at CCSC that would otherwise be unavailable to our members . Many CCSC seniors cannot travel to other centers, so this new programming partnership is vital. The Braille Institute recently designated CCSC as Southern California's first low -to-no vision programming-friendly senior center, allowing 43 Braille Institute members displaced by closing their Rancho Mirage location to take their enhancement classes at CCSC and call the senior center their home as members through a co-membership program.
Due to the pandemic, CCSC enhanced collaborations with existing community partners, doubling the on-site, rent-free allocation of office space dedicated to embedded social service partners. We increased access to their essential work addressing the multitude of social service needs of Cathedral City, Palm Springs, Rancho Mirage, and surrounding area clients.
CCSC continues to offer the services of Senior Advocates of the Desert, Jewish Family Services, Braille Institute, and collaborative programs with Mizel l and Joslyn senior centers on-site at CCSC to address the variety of concerns facing our constituents. Support services include helping individuals navigate complex and confusing public bureaucracies from which they are entitled to services, utility companies, landlords, medical establishments, transportation providers, and the many other barriers individuals face as they age. Our embedded partners offer much -needed relief to those facing an increasingly complex world, especially during the pandemic.
The cost to provide these resources is represented by the sacrifice of earned income from our minimal revenue-producing spaces, plus outgoing expenses, including office supplies and associated overhead.
Center Upgrades
In response to the strains put on the agency by the pandemic and increase in related services and programming, CCSC has focused on strengthening both
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staff and volunteer training and effectiveness. New accounting controls have been implemented, and reopening programs have been carefully planned in a phased rollout. The board has been enlarged and continues to grow to achieve meaningful outreach goals while meeting the increasing demand for essential services, requiring dramatically increased fundraising.
Utilizing volunteers and business support to effect significantly outsize impact DURING THE PANDEMIC, the CCSC volunteer operation transformed from grassroots to a more mature, professional, self -sustaining program . Volunteers treat their duties with the same integrity as if they were paid, staff. As a result, our small agency acts and feels like a much larger one. Volunteer -led staffing helps achieve CCSC's mission to serve more seniors comprehensively. With a large, effective volunteer contingent, CCSC has an outsized impact on our community compared to its budget and building size.
One lasting example of our improved volunteer program is our commitment to monthly Volunteer Forums, the first Friday of every month. Volunteers learn about and influence the agency's goals, ask questions, share feedback with agency board and staff leadership, and hear about upcoming events and opportunities.
B. STATEMENT OF QUALIFICATIONS
A. Staff
The staff comprises three full-time and two part -time employees. President and CEO Geoffrey E. Corbin possess a Master's degree in Nonprofit Leadership and 30 years of dedicated nonprofit executive leadership experience; VP of Operations, Victor J. Ide, owned an In-Home Senior Care Agency in Palm Springs which he recently sold to a larger company out of Los Angeles and before that he spent his career in Human Resources with several large organizations including Office Depot, Gap, Inc., Wells Fargo, and Charles Schwab; VP of Programming, Rebecca Ruffing, is a seasoned professional with recent senior programs and services experience from a considerably larger senior center; part-time Volunteer Coordinator, Patricia Graves, is a retired corporate executive with nearly a decade of CCSC experience; and Community Outreach Coordinator, Alma Gutierrez, is an energetic, enthusiastic bilingual medical professional dedicated to engaging Cathedral City's under-served communities in programming beneficial to them.
2. Agency
Since March 2020, CCSC has focused on preventing, preparing, and responding to COVID-19. Seniors, many presenting underlying health conditions, suffer and remain most at risk of COVID -19. As Cathedral City's sole agency entirely dedicated to serving seniors and addressing aging issues, we are witnessing that the COVID -19 pandemic is causing more problems for older adults than just sickness and death.
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Widespread social distancing and the cancellation of routine medical care have profound and potentially devastating implications for elders. Isolation drastically decreases physical and mental healt h, negatively impacts nutrition, and delays decisions to seek medical treatment —compounding existing chronic medical issues and creating new ones. CCSC is best-positioned to assist significantly more seniors in need with intensive and direct interventions, prepare for the coming onslaught of need for essent ial services caused by the waves of COVID -19 infections and related financial repercussions.
C. PILOT PROJECT TO DECREASE MISUSE OF CITY EMERGENCY RESOURCES AND
INCREASE PANDEMIC RESPONSE RESOURCES
When people call 911, it's not always for real emergencies. People are often in some kind of bind and can't think of anyone else to call, but these calls still require a full response — firefighters, trucks, police cars, the works — which can quickly outsize the problem. Calls to 911 result in sending a highly trained, expensive EMT crew, firefighters, and their apparatus, or police, or all three.
Emergency response departments are well-designed for legitimate acute and often big-scale problems. Yet, like others nationwide, Cathedral City's emergency response departments also contend with many calls that do not warrant those big resources.
These non-emergency calls involve problems that one might call a friend or family member for, e.g., a ride to pick up a prescription or a doctor's appointment and various solvable needs. When they don't have any other support, some people get to a point where they call 911 repeatedly, knowing that since nobody else will help them, Cathedral City's safety, emergency, and rescue departments will respond.
RESULT: Frequent, non-emergency calls take valuable resources that could be focused on COVID-related and actual emergencies.
Problem
Today, a disproportionate percentage of calls to 911 are related to low -priority incidents that may not require a time- sensitive response and are better suited to civilian social service responders rather than police officers, firefighters, and medics. Some 911 calls may not require a time- sensitive response at all. Recent studies conducted by the Center for American Progress and the Law Enforcement Action Partnership examined 911 calls in several cities across America. They found that between one -quarter and one- third of calls were low priority or non - urgent. Also, they found only between one-quarter and one-third of calls were life- threatening emergencies.
While many 911 calls merit an emergency response, dispatching police officers and firefighters to calls where their presence is unnecessary is an ineffective use
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of safety resources that are necessary elsewhere, especially with increased pandemic-related demands. Utilizing safety and rescue resources on low -priority calls carries high societal costs. For example, stretched thin by low -acuity 911 calls, police officers, medics, and fire fighters have less time to devote to severe and acute situations. And when they spend their days racing between 911 calls, our safety resource professionals have fewer opportunities to build proactive relationships with community members. As emergency medi cal services are increasingly overwhelmed, due in part to the pandemic, we know that a portion of use by frequent callers is potentially avoidable.
Mirroring the nationwide trend, Cathedral City Police, Fire, and Rescue operations are experiencing repeat non- emergency calls from residents, many seniors, not experiencing emergency-related issues.
Why it happens
There are common social factors, including isolation, poverty, and quality of life in those calling emergency services frequently. They are related to quality -of-life issues such as loneliness and isolation, exponentially increased by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as homelessness, mental healt h disorders, or substance misuse. Recent validated studies suggest that nearly half of frequent EMS callers were lonely, nearly 15% had gone hungry in the preceding month, and 43% had difficulties making ends meet at the end of the month. For quality of li fe, 78% had mobility problems, 55% had difficulty with self -care, 78% had difficulty with usual activities, 87% experienced pain/discomfort, and 67% had anxiety/depression.
Many frequent callers experience psychiatric and substance use disorders or have chronic medical conditions (often with multiple comorbidities). Lacking close friends, living alone, unemployment, disability, retirement, and subjective feelings of loneliness help to define these individuals' quality of life.
Further, studies suggest that frequent EMS users lack proper access to primary healthcare services and are forced to rely on emergency health services as their only source of regular medical care. Instead, they present to EMS for non- urgent health issues. Healthcare access and quality of life issues indicate a need for wellness checks, health service optimization, and social services for this vulnerable population.
Proposed solution
Cathedral City chooses a tailored model to fit the local context and most effectively meet its residents' needs. Thus, the City meaningfully engaged a key City nonprofit contractor, Cathedral City Senior Center, to design the proposed model. The proposed public -private partnership with Cathedral City Senior Center is a less expensive solution to a growing problem and provides care for those most in need.
Cathedral City Senior Center is not a traditional senior center. Because Cathedral City is a young city incorporated in 1981, it does not yet have a community center.
Cathedral City Senior Center often ac ts as one of the community's de facto
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centers. With an emphasis on seniors, the center serves Cathedral City residents in need, regardless of age. A large, weekly public food bank, daily embedded social services departments, an upcoming SSI signup center t hat alleviates the need for residents to travel to the federal department but instead come to the center for help signing up for SSI entitlements, and other services are available to all Cathedral City residents, regardless of ability to pay. The center is becoming a 21st century Community Center for Active Living.
To strengthen outcomes for the community and safety resources alike, CCSC has developed a pilot demonstration project —A Community Approach to Reducing Non-Emergency 911 Calls in Cathedral City. This proposed project builds on Cathedral City Senior Center's existing public -private partnership with Cathedral City and the center's extensive network of wellness resources. We will contract with our embedded community social service and health partner s to address the needs of frequent 911 callers who have non-emergency needs.
As envisioned, the City of Cathedral City would utilize Cathedral City Senior Center (CCSC), a private nonprofit, to provide frequent callers with wellness checks by trained, bilingual social services workers to assess and evaluate their needs and connect them with appropriate healthcare and social service treatments. Project outcomes are to:
• reduce isolation
• connect Cathedral City residents in need with appropriate services to address their needs
• reduce the use of safety resources
• increase availability for COVID-related demands
• connect seniors and high- need residents with a community of friends and helpers at the senior center.
Senior Center qualifications for the proposed project
CCSC is uniquely qualified to partner with Cathedral City to assist residents in need. The senior center's vision and core principles include promoting wellness, community connection, quality of life, and a healthy body, mind, and spirit to assist with individual self -sufficiency. Our approach is to achieve this by connecting residents in need with a community of friends and helpers at the center.
The senior center has a long track record of successful CBDG and Community Assistance contracts with the City serving residents with high needs. The proposed pilot demonstration project details are:
1. The City refers frequent non-emergency callers, approximately 15 to 35 individuals, to CCSC for wellness checks, evaluation, resource connections, follow-up, and tracking.
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2. CCSC utilizes one to two contracted bilingual social workers available to visit and call seniors to help determine the root causes of their frequent calls to emergency personnel. Geriatric health and welfare, e.g., spotting senior abuse, will be among the full social work capabilities of CCSC social work staffing.
3. CCSC refers individuals to embedded and partner health, social services, and community agencies to address root causes of repeat callers to 911 to offer residents longer-term, more intensive solutions to issues they experience.
4. CCSC tracks these individuals for one year from the contract's start.
Measuring Success
By the end of the contract, the City and CCSC will evaluate the effect of the project by measuring outcomes, including:
1. Number of referrals received.
2. Reduction of repeat 911 calls from frequent callers.
3. Connections made to resource agencies.
4. Numbers of visits and overall connection to CCSC or related community groups.
5. Indirectly, overall increased network of support and self-sufficiency.
CCSC social workers are likely to have several interactions with the same individual and will recommend appropriate programs to consider enrolling in, such as the senior center Friendly Caller program, a volunteer weekly volunteer friendly wellness check -in call program. With appropriate transportation and other resources, they might recommend in-person recreation and education classes, or other community programs, with the goal of building friend and support networks for these individuals. Multiple calls and visits from social workers can build long- term relationships, helping individuals access housing, health care, and other supportive services and following up to maintain progress.
If successful, future phases might involve incorporating volunteer Peer Navigators.
Long-term, it is peer support that becomes the backbone of the program. We want individuals engaged and supported by the community —friends and peer navigators. These volunteers will relate to clients without judgment and personal understanding of their experience.
Ultimately, the potential for a Crisis Call Diversion program could be a natural next step, if not managed simultaneously. Diversion programs typically rely on clinicians to resolve non-emergency mental health, substance abuse, and specific geriatric or aging-related calls for service over the phone. As calls come into 911, call-takers would flag situations that might be appropriate for diversion response.
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D. REQUESTED AMOUNT
Budget & Timeline
1. $35k Contracted MSW.
2. $18k Mileage, Use of Van, Use of Office Space, Budget for Supplies, Supervision, Indirect Costs of Utilizing CCSC staff and facility.
3. The $53,000 project would span one year.
The program will be a replicable pilot demonstration project that, if successful, may be eligible for continued funding from outside sources, including the Desert Healthcare District, Riverside County Office on Aging, CA Wellness Foundation, the State of CA, and several other public agencies and private funders.