Helping the Helpers: Training Caseworkers and Community

Housing and Homelessness

Expand existing project, program, or initiative

WC's affiliated nonprofits, public agencies and faith communities help unhoused people in Western LA County who manage a host of complex issues. When Angelenos lost financial security, healthcare and housing during the pandemic, the burden on direct service staff, clergy and lay-leaders to help grew in unprecedented ways, too. The work is sensitive and complex yet largely low-paying. Frontline staff are often recent college graduates or drawn to the work due to lived experience of homelessness. Despite offering trauma-informed care and experiencing the rewards of impactful work, frontline staff in LA County share worries of stress, trauma, fatigue and burnout. In fact, frontline staff in homeless services are leaving the field at an alarming rate. This not only negatively affects the individual, it also disadvantages agencies and clients. Clergy are defacto frontline workers, coming face to face with folks they are not fully equipped to help and risking similar trauma and burnout.

WC is addressing the urgent mental health crisis facing frontline staff and clergy by providing in-person and virtual education and support. Frontline workers' stress, burnout, anxiety, and trauma is ongoing and as complex as the homelessness crisis itself. We are uniquely qualified to address both due to our over forty years of connecting and supporting Western LA County's many human services stakeholders. We apply this caliber of expertise to offer dynamic, comprehensive workshops and training around how to sustainably help our unhoused neighbors. We also collaborate with agencies and faith organizations all over LA County, extending our impact beyond our homebase of the Westside. WC used a Department of Mental Health grant in 2020 to create trainings specifically for direct service staff. We received vehement praise and appreciation for these pilot events, during which we checked in on agency staff and introduced tools for self-care and stress management. We have since greatly expanded in both depth and breadth, covering more issues and inviting countywide faith organizations to partake as well. Past topics include de-escalation, burnout prevention, life-coaching, trauma-informed nutrition, compassion fatigue, realities of LA's landscape, and connecting to services. We also continue to host in person meet-and-greets, monthly meetings, outdoor resources fairs, homeless memorial services, and the annual Success Breakfast.

WC brings together experts, frontline workers of varying experience, and a wide array of faith groups. Trainings raise the baseline of crucial knowledge as we work together to help our neighbors become housed with dignity. They teach lay leaders essentials to compassionate outreach and public safety. We find workshops effective in meeting this gap in service, with high demand and widely reported positive personal outcomes. In response to the high level of demand we couldn't meet over the past two years, WC will expand our highly successful trainings for frontline staff members, whose work has a ripple effect among those they serve directly and their communities and for members of the faith community. A more robust and resilient social service network supports long-term sector growth, greater consistency within agencies and faith among clients, and builds hope in neighborhoods.

We received an overwhelmingly positive response to all previous series of trainings, as measured by attendance, return attendance, surveys and interviews. Attendees from across the spectrum of social service are learning how to truly get people the help they need, which is usually complex and multi-faceted, while also protecting their own mental health. In the first year, trainings saw approximately 100 frontline staff members in attendance. In the second year, we expanded trainings by offering online, virtual options that can be more broadly accessed across Los Angeles County. We also developed workshops and held trainings aimed at faith organizations, since they often have meal programs or encounter people in need on a daily basis seeking assistance at houses of worship. In our second year we supported 386 individuals with in-person training, and another 825 people who tuned in virtually or attended non-training events.