Referrals may be made to homelessness service agencies and charities, providers of pro bono legal services, and home improvement charities.
Regarding the mentally ill and suicidal clients, select police officers will be trained and organized into crisis intervention teams, based on the Memphis model, to ensure that the mentally ill are recognized and offered services more appropriate to the reality of their illnesses. Similarly, local emergency room staff will be trained to the same ends. Where appropriate, the town will provide transportation to the nearby mental health facility as it will be worth the cost to ensure that the client is getting the assistance needed (James & Gilliland, 2008).
To combat street crime, we will facilitate a proactive partnership between community organizers, activists, groups, and the police department to foster positive community-police relationships and increased community-police communication and empower citizen anti-crime action through formal training and informal social interactions between citizens and police.
Programs for children and youth will be offered to prevent youth involvement in street crime and to help positively engage young people affected by crises in the lives of the adults around them (Greenstone & Leviton, 2011).
Referrals to substance and alcohol abuse services, psychological counseling, and reemployment services will be offered to all who demonstrate the need for such intervention. Such services may be offered to address a client's immediate crisis or the secondary issues surrounding or predating the immediate crisis.
The Town of Danville will provide temporary shelter space and safe, reliable transportation for clients to issue-appropriate facilities in the region. Because Danville is small and has limited resources, transporting clients to appointments is the most cost-effective way the town can ensure that intervention processes get started and continue through their prescribed course. Great effort will be exerted to make sure transportation services are scheduled with efficiency as the priority.
Working with area colleges and universities will ensure proper evaluation of the...
Frequent training and refreshers will incorporate lessons learned in the field and will help prevent work burnout. Recruiting staff and volunteers who are involved in academic relevant to crisis intervention issues at colleges and universities in the region will ensure a motivated, educated and educable staff. Staff will know exactly how their efforts contribute to the success of the overall program.
Staff assignments will always use teams of two or more to ensure accurate assessment and sharing of the stress of intervention. Cross training will be offered to ensure flexibility in the program workforce to cope with changing demands and can help alleviate burnout and task monotony (Greenstone & Leviton, 2011).
Motivated members of the target populations will be recruited as staff and/or volunteers to raise the program's profile within and across communities, to deepen and enrich resource networks between the intervention program and the community, and to tap into insights into community dynamics ((James & Gilliland, 2008).
All staff will be offered counseling services when desired or needed. Team leaders will schedule relatively short shifts with frequent breaks during the workday, frequent meetings to ensure proper delivery of services and to assess staff morale, and informal social and physical activities to allow staff opportunities to interact as people as opposed to mere coworkers in a stressful work environment (Greenstone & Leviton, 2011).
References
Greenstone, J.L., & Leviton, S.C. (2011). Elements of crisis intervention: Crises and how to respond to them. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.
James, R.K., & Gilliland, B.E. (2008). Crisis intervention strategies. Belmont, CA: Thomson.
Roberts, a.R. (ed.). (1995). Crisis intervention and time-limited cognitive treatment. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
