Project Outcomes
Project Outcomes
List any important outcomes or findings not previously reported:
The project's goals were to 1) strengthen the Library's role in providing support to the region's most vulnerable populations, 2) build strong relationships across agencies for information-sharing, referral, cross-training, program development, and 3) getting help to people with many barriers and challenges.
Staff who voluntarily signed up for trainings on suicide prevention, homelessness, workforce development, and mental health came away with new knowledge, attitudes, and strategies for dealing with customers who have challenging lives.
Staff who worked with United Way of Southern Nevada and other local social service agency providers learned that developing new mobile app-based tools for helping people find and access social services is complex. This project was extremely fortunate to have Tim Burch as the lead on the app development team. As former Director of the Clark County Family Services division, Tim has a long history of working with neighborhood, city, county, regional, state, and national social service providers. The app has both a focus on providing a community map of service providers and a "Yelp" like functionality so that customer referrals, reviews and multi-agency service portals are integrated into the design. While this grant launched the app development process, it is gratifying that many new partners have joined the work and will be
sustaining it as it gets loaded with local information and beta tested by a cross-organizational group of staff that work customer service on the front line of their organizations.
Please briefly describe the importance of these outcomes and findings for future program planning:
Library branches became very invested and innovative in designing social service outlets - resource fairs, resource rooms, and presentations from social service professionals. The public was ecstatic to have a one-stop experiences. Library leadership felt that the roll-out of this new strategic service direction was accelerated by the work of this grant.
LVCCLD is at the forefront of bringing social service support to staff and service area populations. This is a new strategic direction for the Library District and this grant was transformational in helping the library leadership team get buy-in for the importance of the library and librarian's role in the social service environment of southern Nevada.
One of the most impactful trainings was provided by Leah Esquerra, San Francisco Public Library's Social Service Team Supervisor. She brought along one of her Housing and Health Assistants, Joe, who demonstrated how to approach homeless with empathy and compassion, as well as excellent connections to community resources. This really opened the eyes of our staff on several fronts, including questioning how to improve current policies and practices to be more effective with people in difficult situations.
Survey responses reflect that more questions may have been raised than answered, but that our staff is "all in" on serving this population better:
1) The District would benefit from hiring a social worker as a resource. This person would be able to provide training, identify ways to meet the challenges of our communities, and coordinate social services in ways we are not currently equipped.
2) I hope our administration is on board with moving in this direction. These are important new humane ways to approach people, rather than our policy that is confrontational and asks sleeping people to leave the building.
3) This training was brilliant. I'll never look at homelessness the same again.
4) This training was very successful and helpful. It's very important to have open discussions.
5) We need more discussions about mental illness, drug abuse, prescription med abuse, and these types of psychological topics.
6) The importance of "listening" is so clear to me now I wish I would have gotten this training sooner.
Explain one or two of the most significant lessons learned for others wanting to adopt any facets of this project:
Research on Social Services programs in libraries: The research shows an increasing interest in social services in libraries, the most effective of which are programs that work extensively with professionals in the field of homelessness, mental health, family health, workforce, and provision of safety and basic needs.
Development of a local social service app: Almost all paper, web-based, and programs that utilize a social service inventory have difficulty with keeping service provider contact and eligibility requirements current, hence the focus on a customer- AND organization-driven model for app engagement and user design.
Do you anticipate continuing this project after the current reporting period ends:
Yes
Do you anticipate any change in level of effort in managing this project:
Yes
Explain:
The United Way of Southern Nevada will continue the work of beta testing and launching the Community Voice app for social services with the public. The Library District will continue to contribute staff, lists of frequently contacted community agencies, non-profits, and local sources for social service support. The Library District Foundation also contributed significant funding to this effort and was able to leverage that match gift and secure the next stage of app development funding from a national coalition of foundations called "Listen for Good." This will be a national model for using new technologies to connect people to critical local services and service points.
Do you anticipate changing the types of activities and objectives addressed by the project:
Yes
Explain:
The Library District is now fully committed to continuing staff trainings on mental health and social service issues that shape the lives of local customers. The trainings started with this grant will continue, and a broader set of local social service agencies will be contracted for a broad array of topics of interest that came up in staff training surveys.
The "service fair" and "site-based" models of connecting people with multiple service needs will be replicated in new branches, and the Library District has launched a model of co-located services with Workforce Connections.
Was an evaluation conducted for this project:
Yes
Was a final written evaluation report produced:
No
Can the final written evaluation report be shared publicly on the IMLS website:
No
Was the evaluation conducted by project staff (either SLAA or local library) or by a third-party evaluator:
Third-Party
What data collection tools were used for any report outcomes and outputs:
Did you collect any media for the data:
What types of methods were used to analyze collected data:
Other:
How were participants (or items) selected:
What type of research design did you use to compare the value for any reported output or outcome:
