STREET OUTREACH PROGRAM

STREET OUTREACH PROGRAM

The Wisconsin Association for Homeless and Runaway Services is a network of community based, voluntary, non-profit, agencies. The goals of the member agencies are to strengthen families, prevent family dissolution, promote self-sufficiency, and assure permanent, stable, homes for youth. Programs provide youth and their families with preventive and crisis individual, family and group intervention, temporary shelter, crisis hotlines, aftercare services, outreach, and community education.

In September of 1998, five member programs of the association collaborated on a project to provide a team of street outreach workers, consisting of paid staff and volunteers to their service areas (ten counties).

The Five Street Outreach Member Programs of the Wisconsin Association for Homeless and Runaway Services will:

Provide youth with direct access to resources through a mobile youth outreach worker
Provide youth with counseling, temporary shelter, 24 hour crisis hotlines, and after care services
Reunite 90% of street youth served through the runaway program with their families or have them placed in a mutually agreed upon safe alternate living arrangement
Provide outreach and referral services to street youth and implement positive community relations
Provide Street Youth with educational materials specifically geared towards addressing issues of sexual exploitation, pregnancy prevention, and substance abuse

The Wisconsin Association for Homeless and Runaway Services will:

· Provide opportunities for street outreach program mutual support and information sharing

· Provide on-site and 24 hour phone technical assistance to street outreach programs

· Provide on-site technical assistance on street outreach program development/implementation

· Provide/coordinate pre-service training of street outreach workers and ongoing educational workshops/staff training

· Coordinate educational and promotional material development and resource sharing

· Carry out fiscal and all other reporting responsibilities in connection with proposal funding

· Provide ongoing evaluation of program through site visits and coordinate peer review process.

STREET OUTREACH PROGRAM LOCATIONS

Appleton (Outagamie and Winnebago Counties )

Green Bay ( Brown County)

Kenosha ( Kenosha County )

Sheboygan ( Calumet , Fond du Lac, Manitowoc Sheboygan Counties)

West Bend (Washington & Ozaukee Counties)