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Ȗ Important to establish memoranda of
understanding (MOU), enabling transparency of
expectations
•Leaving out vital component of hospital or
community
Ȗ Can lead to feelings of exclusivity
and poor future communication
Ȗ Truly “takes a village” and is very emotionally
charged at times
•Population struggles
Ȗ Individual may not stay with job or school/
general education diploma program, initially—
important to recognize as long-term goal
Ȗ Criminal records may hinder employment
opportunities; job readiness/vocational training
partnerships are key
Step 4: Implementation:
Developing the programmatic structure
I. Building the team: program administration
•Program executive director: typically a trauma surgeon
or emergency physician
•Program manager: typically an injury prevention coordinator in new programs; this position is not essential
if director has time
II. Building the team: frontline staff/case managers/
intervention specialists
•Great candidates often found working in CM capacity
at CBO
•Consider panel interviews, involving people from
community
•As program grows, useful to have supervising CM
•Important to have at least two CMs to start—a lone
soldier has a difficult job
•New programs often have MOUs with CBOs for CM
services, which allows time to secure funding, demonstrate value, and build bridges to community
III. Training frontline staff
•Should address recognizing acute stress response,
PTSD, and understanding of trauma informed care
(TIC)
• Workshops are available through the National Network
of Hospital-based Violence Intervention Programs
(NNHVIP)
Ȗ NNHVIP offers monthly working group calls to
discuss difficult cases and challenges
IV. Accountability
• Weekly staff meetings with set agenda, and separate
weekly CM sessions to discuss number of eligible
patients, screening, enrollment, progress, and retention
V. Data collection
•Immediately begin collecting data on eligible patients,
CM screening rates, enrollment rates, early attrition
rates, needs assessment, progress on identified needs,
and long-term outcomes
•A template to track HVIPs was designed by QuesGen
Systems, which several NNHVIP programs use or adapt
as a platform in building a multicenter database
Step 5: Building the support structure
I. Referral to mental health system
•Mental health services are an essential component of
the program