This paper presents a comprehensive crisis intervention strategy for the Town of Danville, which faces a cluster of overlapping community crises including unemployment, domestic violence, housing instability, mental illness, street crime, and youth vulnerability. The plan outlines a tiered organizational structure — a Crisis Intervention Committee, a Task Force, Triage Assessment Teams, and Primary Intervention Teams — designed to prioritize and address crises in order of severity. Client services are organized around distinct populations and areas of critical need. The paper also addresses staffing, cross-training, volunteer recruitment, and burnout prevention measures to sustain program effectiveness over time.
The crisis facing Danville is, in fact, a cluster of crises. Our intervention strategy must therefore assess and prioritize the crises individuals are experiencing, then address the most immediate and most destabilizing crises first while offering direction for dealing with secondary issues in a timely fashion once the immediate crisis has been resolved. This strategy will require a systematic, coordinated approach; collaboration between government agencies and external agencies and institutions; a trained and motivated staff; and a program evaluation component to ensure overall success.
The committee membership will include representation from a range of relevant stakeholder constituencies. The committee will determine the intervention program's overall scope, goals, objectives, and public relations. A small number of municipal administrative specialists will be reassigned to handle the committee's administrative needs (James & Gilliland, 2008).
The task force will include top field managers from various local and regional social, health, police, education, family, human, and volunteer services agencies. The task force will help create and grow interagency partnerships; coordinate outreach; collaborate with the region's colleges and universities to recruit motivated and educated staff at low labor cost and through non-financial academic incentives; coordinate staff training; assign staff to intervention teams; participate in staff and program evaluations; and create a staff burnout prevention program with the help of triage assessment and primary intervention team leaders.
The task force will also create goals and objectives for the triage assessment and primary intervention teams and will initiate outreach efforts to relevant community groups and social institutions such as neighborhood associations and churches (James & Gilliland, 2008; Roberts, 1995).
Triage assessment teams determine a client's crisis type and/or prioritize crises, assess the intensity of the crisis, and evaluate the client's emotional, psychological, and physical condition using triage assessment forms. They then direct or deliver the client to the appropriate primary intervention team, or arrange the initial contact with the appropriate external partner agency when crisis intensity demands it. Triage teams work in fixed social services locations, staff telephone and online hotlines, and go out into the community. They maintain outreach partnerships with community organizations such as churches and charity groups and with partner agencies such as health care agencies, the police department, and employment agencies (Roberts, 1995).
Primary intervention teams focus on deeper assessment and more individualized intervention options in situations where the intensity of the immediate crisis is low. Team members can counsel a client, help clients examine various options for resolving their immediate crisis including appropriate referrals, create a plan of action with or for the client, and conduct follow-up meetings concerning the client's progress and the efficacy of the action plan. Intervention action plans will be time-limited and focused on the immediate crisis at hand (Roberts, 1995).
"Targeted services for each vulnerable population"
"Logistics, grants, and college partnerships"
"Staff wellbeing, cross-training, and retention strategies"
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