An Overview of St. Patrick Center
The St. Patrick Center is a humanitarian organization in St. Louis that assists the homeless. It uses a “housing first” method, which involves making sure the homeless individual or family is housed and then provided with a support network (“St. Patrick Center”, n.d.). The individual can receive job training, attend courses to acquire skills, and visit behavioral health programs (“St. Patrick Center”, n.d.). The St. Patrick Center works to provide dignity, care, and respect to homeless community members.
Impact during the Pandemic
St. Patrick Center has a positive impact on the well-being of their patients during the pandemic. The center also prioritizes its contributors’ health and safety during the COVID-19 crisis and has suspended every onsite volunteer project (St. Patrick Center, 2020). However, volunteers are essential as they cook and serve meals, grant administrative support, sort contributions, and perform other helpful activities. Therefore, to fulfill the missing effort usually provided by volunteers, staff had to step outside their typical duties to assist in critical client-facing tasks, including the daily meal services and overnight support with women’s programs (St. Patrick Center, 2020). Overall, St. Patrick Center had an overflow of assistance through online donations, food contributions, and individuals praying for patients and staff.
Partnership with the ST. Patrick Center
Cooperation with the St. Patrick Conter should follow the seven steps of the Generalist Intervention Model. The Social Worker could initiate engagement by contacting the center and inquiring whether they would be open to partnership. The Social worker should seek to engage with both the organization as a whole, and with the individual volunteers and employees, they interact with (Kirst-Ashman & Hull, 2017). The assessment could involve visiting the St. Patrick Center and observing their facilities and capabilities. The Social worker can begin planning once they understand the capacity and resources available from the Center. Once the plan is in place, the implementation of the plan can begin. At this stage, it is still important to maintain engagement with the center and individuals there, which will assist in the evaluation. The precise assessment will allow the worker to know when and how to successfully terminate the program (Kirst-Ashman & Hull, 2017). Follow up is vital for future cooperation and planning and should be pursued when possible.
References
Kirst-Ashman, K. K., & Hull, G. H. (2017). Generalist practice with organizations and communities (7th ed.). Cengage Learning.
St. Patrick Center. (n.d.). 2020, Web.
St. Patrick Center. (2020). St. Patrick Center chronicles. Web.