The St Vincent De Paul Society operates Fred’s Place as a daytime homeless care and support service for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness in the Tweed Heads region.
Current partnerships exist between Fred’s place, the local health district and Kennedy Dve Medical Centre to provide a GP led health clinic once a fortnight. Kennedy Drive Medical Centre provide administrative support and GP hours and NNSWLHD provide a specialist Chronic Disease Management RN.
Any health care concern that is important to the client is addressed. Quite often this will also include drug and alcohol issues, but access to treatment can be difficult given the nature of homelessness. Current practice is to refer to the drug and alcohol intake or to ED in an attempt to keep the person safe. When asked what drug and alcohol support would provide the most benefit to the clinic, given time and space constraints, both clinicians agreed they would like:
- Localised clinical support.
- Access to a referral process suited to the transient nature of the clients
So with cooperation and collaboration across health sectors we are now trialling a different approach that includes:
- Direct phone access to the specialist Drug and Alcohol team at The Tweed Hospital during clinic hours for support, when needed.
- Referrals from Fred’s Place will be given high priority to assessment, expediting contact
- Flexibility with contacting clients, given the difficulty with phone contact with homelessness, a message will be left with Fred’s place to support engagement.
- D & A education for CDM staff and Fred’s place support staff, to increase sustainability and capacity to provide brief intervention in a place of safety.
We look forward to bringing you some positive stories from these simple changes in the next few months
– Sandy O’Brien, Integrated Care Coordinator
Mental Health/Drug & Alcohol; NNSWLHD