Cross-Cultural Dialogues on Homelessness: From Pretreatment Strategies to Psychologically Informed Environments - Paperback

Levy, Jay S.: - Jay S. Levy has spent more than 30 years working with individuals who experience homelessness. He is the author of the highly acclaimed books Pretreatment Guide for Homeless Outreach & Housing First and Homeless Narratives & Pretreatment Pathways. He has also published a monograph and several journal articles on Homelessness issues. Jay developed Pretreat-ment as an approach for helping people without homes. He has helped to create new Housing First programs such as the Regional Engagement and Assessment for Chronically Homeless program (REACH). Jay is currently employed by Eliot CHS-Homeless Services as a Regional Manager for the statewide SAMHSA-PATH Homeless Outreach Team. He is also an adjunct teacher at Anna Maria College and recently taught a unique graduate psychology course on Outreach Counseling, which integrated Pretreatment and PIE perspectives with the clinical challenges of homeless services work. He has achieved formal recognition from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Mental Health for his ongoing efforts to help under-served homeless individuals through his direct service, clinical super-vision of staff, and program development. Jay received his MSW degree in clinical social work from Columbia University in 1988. Jay lives in Western MA with his wife, Louise. His two children, Talia and Sara, are off to college and beyond. He is an avid stargazer. More information on Jay and his work can be found at www.jayslevy.com.Johnson, Robin: - "Robin first became interested in understanding mental health and mental illness when studying social science and philosophy in the radical years of the late '60s. He then came across the therapeutic community (TC) approach - a movement for a more communitarian, social psychiatry - and worked and lived in a number of such communities through the 1970s, including the Henderson, probably the best known of all TCs, which specialised in work with those we would now describe as having a personality disorder. Robin went on to train as a psychiatric social worker, and became interested in-and impressed with-the role of housing and homelessness services in working with some of their more vulnerable and chaotic clients, some of those most hard to reach. In 2001, he left social services, to pursue an interest in research and dev-elop¬ment on mental health and housing, and soon found himself an adviser to various government departments on innovative practice. He was one of the leading authors of two government guidance papers on mental health needs that argued for better recognition of the work of homelessness services. He was for five years editor of the Journal of Housing, Care and Support, a visiting fellow at several universities, and worked on the Royal College of Psychiatrist's Enabling Environments working group, which was tasked with adapting the TC approach for the era of community psychiatry - work which indirectly gave rise to the concept of a psycho-logically informed environ¬ment in homelessness resettlement services. He has one remarkable daughter, of whom he is enormously proud; now lives in West Cornwall; and plays the baritone saxophone with more enthusiasm than competence. He claims to be trying to retire; but no one seems to believe it."