Training for the people who open doors.

The First Ten Minutes

How you open decides whether you get the real story.

People in crisis have usually told their story to five people already. The first ten minutes decide whether you hear the version they tell everyone, or the one that actually explains what is going on.

Motivational Interviewing: four tasks and OARS

• Engaging: build a working relationship before you fix anything
• Focusing: agree on what this conversation is about
• Evoking: draw out their own reasons and ideas
• Planning: shape next steps together
• OARS skills: Open questions, Affirmations, Reflections, Summaries

How to run it

1. Start concrete: "Where did you sleep last night?" sets the facts without judgment.
2. Reflect before you fix. Say back what you heard in one sentence before offering anything.
3. Ask one open question at a time, then wait longer than feels comfortable.
4. Ask permission before advice: "Can I share what's worked for other families?"
5. Close with a summary and one next step they chose, written down.

From the field

• Say the rules at intake, then mention them again at every meeting. A notice should never be the first time someone hears a rule.
• Tell people where they are on the clock every time you meet: "You're on day 40 of 90." It keeps time real without sounding like a threat.
• Lead with the hard part. Cover expectations before anything else in a group, so they do not surface in front of a guest.
• Introduce the front desk and overnight staff as part of the same team. Clients should know from day one that those staff carry the same authority.

Drill: Take five closed questions from your intake form and rewrite each as an open question. Practice the reflection that follows each one out loud.

Sources

• Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change and Grow, 4th ed. (Miller & Rollnick, Guilford Press, 2023)

Trauma-Informed Practice

Assume the person has been through more than they will tell you today.

Many of the people you serve have learned that systems surprise them, judge them and take things away. Trauma-informed practice removes the surprises and gives back control wherever you can.

SAMHSA's six principles and the 4 Rs

• Safety
• Trustworthiness and transparency
• Peer support
• Collaboration and mutuality
• Empowerment, voice and choice
• Cultural, historical and gender issues
• The 4 Rs: realize, recognize, respond, resist re-traumatization

How to run it

1. Explain what happens next before it happens, including the parts they will not like.
2. Offer real choices, even small ones: which chair, which day, call or text.
3. Remove surprises. If a room check, search or deadline is coming, say so early.
4. Ask "What would make this easier for you?" and act on at least one answer.
5. Notice your setting: noise, crowding, who can overhear.

From the field

• Talk the way a friend would explain what comes next, not the way a policy reads. "Room checks are Thursday, here's what that looks like" lands better than a citation.
• Ask consent for a search respectfully: "Can you step out for a minute, it'll be quick." Treating a refusal as an automatic exit escalates for no gain.
• Room cleanliness alone should almost never put a family on the street. Coach it with storage bins and time, not notices.

Drill: Script how you would explain a weekly room check to a new family using all six principles. Then cut it to four sentences.

Sources

• SAMHSA's Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach (SAMHSA, HHS Pub. No. (SMA) 14-4884, 2014)

De-escalation

Change the room before you change the person.

Escalation follows a predictable arc. If you know where someone is on it, you know which tools work and which make it worse. Safety for you and for everyone in the lobby comes first.

Project BETA's ten domains, mapped to the escalation curve

• Respect personal space
• Do not be provocative
• Establish verbal contact (one person talks)
• Be concise
• Identify wants and feelings
• Listen closely
• Agree, or agree to disagree
• Lay down the law and set clear limits
• Offer choices and optimism
• Debrief the person and the staff

How to run it

1. Change the physical setup first: move away from the audience, sit down if you are standing over them, lower your voice.
2. One staff member talks. Everyone else gives space and watches.
3. Name the want: "You need your stuff back tonight. Let's figure out how."
4. Set the limit with a choice attached: "I can't do that here, I can do this in the office."
5. If it reaches the peak, stop talking about the issue and focus on safety and exits.
6. Debrief within the shift, with the person when calm and with staff.

From the field

• Most grievances end when you move the conversation away from the crowd and sit down.
• For roommate disputes, hear each side separately, then point both back to their own goals instead of judging who is right.
• When someone disrespects front desk staff, there should be a visible consequence, and the front desk should hear what you did. Otherwise they stop reporting.
• Some volatility is normal in shelter. Coach staff who overuse new authority to issue notices, rather than taking the authority away.

Drill: Partner role-play: one person escalates over a lost locker key. Practice three limit-plus-choice sentences.

Sources

• Verbal De-escalation of the Agitated Patient: Project BETA Consensus Statement (Richmond et al., Western Journal of Emergency Medicine, 2012)
• Managing the Cycle of Acting-Out Behavior in the Classroom, 2nd ed. (Colvin & Scott, Corwin, 2015)
• Guidelines for Preventing Workplace Violence for Healthcare and Social Service Workers (OSHA 3148) (OSHA, 2016)

Diversion and Problem-Solving Conversations

Find the smallest fix that actually works.

A shelter bed is expensive, scarce and hard on families. A short, creative conversation often finds a safer option: a relative, a deposit, a bus ticket, one month of rent.

The smallest-fix conversation

• Establish where they slept last night
• Ask about every person in their network, not just family
• Ask what would solve tonight and what would solve this month
• Price the smallest fix and verify it
• Pay vendors directly and keep the paper trail
• Document the outcome and the reason

How to run it

1. Open with "Where did you sleep last night?" to establish the facts first.
2. Walk through people they know one by one. "Who has helped you before?"
3. Ask what the fix would be if money were not the issue, then price it.
4. Verify the arrangement directly with the landlord or host.
5. Pay the landlord or carrier directly. Never hand cash.

From the field

• Call the waitlist again. A second conversation weeks later often finds a relative or resource that was not there at first contact.
• More money will not divert a household that cannot be diverted. Watch for staff reaching for funds before the conversation is done.
• Diversion from inside a shelter is much harder than diversion at the front door. Work as far upstream as you can.
• Count each household once. Diversion numbers that add up overlapping stages overstate results.

Drill: Run a ten-minute diversion conversation with a partner playing a parent whose sister has a spare room 300 miles away.

Finding the Right Door

Sent is not served.

A program existing is not the same as a person getting in. Hours change, intake pauses, requirements shift. A referral only counts when someone receives it, contacts the person and accepts them.

The referral state ladder

• Sent: you made the referral
• Received: the program has it
• Contacted: they reached the person
• Accepted: the person is in
• Served: help actually happened
• Closed: outcome recorded, or redirected with a reason
• Warm handoff: introduce in person, in front of the client, so they can correct what is said

How to run it

1. Check the door before you send: current hours, intake method, what to bring, last verified date.
2. Give the person a plan B before they leave your office.
3. Do a warm handoff whenever possible: call together, introduce, let the client hear and correct.
4. Follow up at a set time: "I'll check in Thursday at 2."
5. Record why a referral closed, especially when it failed.

From the field

• Map every step of the housing pipeline and know who owns each one. A stall at any step adds weeks.
• Partners have quiet limits, like how many households one case manager can bring to a briefing. Ask before a big push.
• Write down why someone leaves a waitlist. Otherwise the next worker cannot tell what happened.
• A resource across town only helps if transportation comes with it.

Drill: Pick three programs you refer to most. Verify their current intake steps today and write a plan B for each.

Sources

• Warm Handoff: Intervention Guide (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality)
• Randomized Trial of Critical Time Intervention to Prevent Homelessness (Herman, Conover et al., Psychiatric Services, 2011)

Housing First and Critical Time Intervention

Housing is the platform, not the reward.

Requiring people to be treatment-ready before housing keeps them on the street longer. Housing First puts housing first and offers support by choice. Critical Time Intervention covers the fragile months after a move.

Housing First plus CTI

• No readiness requirements for housing
• Consumer choice in services
• Harm reduction rather than abstinence as a condition
• CTI Phase 1, transition: intensive support right after the move
• CTI Phase 2, try-out: the person leads, you watch the supports
• CTI Phase 3, transfer of care: hand off to lasting community supports

How to run it

1. Separate the housing decision from treatment decisions.
2. Plan the first 30 days after move-in in detail: utilities, furniture, food, transportation, landlord contact.
3. Agree on what support looks like during try-out, and step back on purpose.
4. Name the community supports that will remain after you leave.
5. Be honest about limits: housing stability improves; symptoms and income often need other help.

From the field

• Before exiting someone from housing support, ask whether a short extension or small payment prevents a return to homelessness. Usually it is the better decision.

Drill: Write a move-in week plan for a family of four moving into an unfurnished apartment in August.

Sources

• Housing First, Consumer Choice, and Harm Reduction for Homeless Individuals With a Dual Diagnosis (Tsemberis, Gulcur & Nakae, American Journal of Public Health, 2004)
• Effectiveness of permanent supportive housing and income assistance interventions: a systematic review (Aubry et al., Lancet Public Health, 2020)
• Randomized Trial of Critical Time Intervention to Prevent Homelessness (Herman, Conover et al., Psychiatric Services, 2011)

Documentation That Holds Up

Write every note so a stranger could pick up the case tomorrow.

Documentation is how you advocate for someone when you are not in the room. Thin notes are the most common reason a later review cannot reconstruct what happened, and they leave the client without a defense.

Notes that hold up

• Timely: same day
• Objective: what you saw and heard, not your conclusions
• Specific: who, what, when, where
• Complete: what you did and what comes next
• Two-tier notices: a light notice for routine lapses, a formal violation for serious ones

How to run it

1. Write the note the same day, before the shift ends.
2. Use quotes for what the person said, plain description for what you saw.
3. Separate facts from your assessment, and label the assessment.
4. End each note with the next step, the owner and the date.

From the field

• Every file is a case for or against the person. Good notes are what let you advocate for them in a staffing.
• If a formal violation takes 30 minutes and a signature hunt, staff will give verbal warnings instead and the record will be empty. Keep a light tier.
• A refusal to sign does not void a notice. Record "declined to sign" and move on.
• Tie a corrective condition to the specific rule broken. Unrelated demands feel like collecting grievances.
• Keep separate counts for separate rule types. Three missed meetings are not three messy rooms.

Drill: Rewrite this note so it holds up: "Client was rude and refused to cooperate with staff."

Sources

• HMIS Data and Technical Standards Final Notice (HUD, 69 FR 45888, 2004)

Rules, Notices, Exits and Appeals

Decide in advance what you would tolerate nine times, three times, or once.

Rules protect everyone in a shared space, and exits change lives. Fair process, proportional responses and clean separation of roles keep both safety and trust.

Proportional response

• Routine lapse: conversation and coaching
• Repeated lapse: light notice, discussed at the next meeting
• Serious violation: formal notice with a specific condition
• Safety threat: immediate action, then full review
• Separation of roles: whoever gave the warning does not review the exit
• Written appeal, written decision, named reviewers

How to run it

1. Know your policy's tiers before you need them.
2. Deliver notices without a confrontation: upload, copy to their folder, discuss at the next meeting.
3. Rescind a notice when the person brings proof, and note that you did.
4. Time a non-immediate exit for when staff are on shift, usually the next morning.
5. Explain the appeal route in writing at the same time as the decision.

From the field

• A weapon, a credible threat or drug sales once may justify an exit. An unclean room nine times might never.
• For absences, call daily, including hospitals, jails and emergency contacts, before treating someone as gone.
• Handle grievances at the lowest level that can resolve them. Most close with a conversation and a note.
• Anyone named in a grievance hands it to a peer or the next level up.
• Be careful who you copy. Copying senior leaders early makes them parties, and they can no longer review neutrally.
• When leadership overrules a rule for a good reason, explain it to staff, or they will ask why the rule exists.

Drill: A parent has missed curfew three times in two weeks. Walk through your response at each tier, and what you would check first.

Sources

• SAMHSA's Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach (SAMHSA, HHS Pub. No. (SMA) 14-4884, 2014)

Mandated Reporting and Confidentiality in Arizona

Know the duty before the moment arrives.

In Arizona, social workers and others responsible for a child's or vulnerable adult's care must report suspected abuse or neglect immediately. At the same time, several privacy rules decide who can see what you write. Both matter every week.

Report and protect

• Children: A.R.S. 13-3620, report immediately to a peace officer, DCS, or a tribal law enforcement or social services agency
• Vulnerable adults: A.R.S. 46-454, report immediately to a peace officer or Adult Protective Services
• HMIS: baseline privacy and security standards, privacy notice posted
• Domestic violence: victim service providers keep identifying data out of HMIS (VAWA)
• Substance use treatment records: 42 CFR Part 2, more closely aligned with HIPAA since 2024

How to run it

1. If someone is in danger now, call 911 first.
2. Report what you observed or were told. You do not need proof, and you do not investigate.
3. Tell your supervisor, and follow your agency's internal steps.
4. Document the facts, the time you reported, who you spoke with and any reference number.
5. Share client information only on a need-to-know basis and with the consent your program requires.

From the field

• In a sensitive incident, gather facts before acting. Frontline staff keep providing normal care but do not question the person about the incident.

Drill: List the three phone numbers and one website you would need for a report, and where you would document it. Know them before your next shift.

Sources

• A.R.S. 13-3620: Duty to report abuse, physical injury, neglect and denial of care to minors (Arizona Revised Statutes)
• A.R.S. 46-454: Duty to report abuse, neglect and exploitation of vulnerable adults (Arizona Revised Statutes)
• Adult Protective Services: Mandated Reporters (Arizona Department of Economic Security)
• HMIS Data and Technical Standards Final Notice (HUD, 69 FR 45888, 2004)
• HMIS Comparable Database Manual (HUD Exchange, updated 2026)
• Confidentiality of Substance Use Disorder Patient Records (42 CFR Part 2) Final Rule (HHS, 89 FR 12472, 2024)

Incidents: Report It Right

It is never too late, or too far off-site, to file.

Incident reports protect clients, staff and the program. They are also how leaders learn what is actually happening. Most reports go wrong because they are late, thin, or mix several people together.

The clean incident report

• Each witness writes their own report
• One primary person per report; others by role or room only
• At least three full sentences of narrative
• Same shift, or as soon as possible
• A supervisor, not frontline staff, flags escalation to executives
• A lead compiles reports into one timeline

How to run it

1. Make the scene safe and get help first.
2. Notify your supervisor during the shift.
3. Write your own account. Do not co-write with others.
4. Describe what you saw and did, in order, with times.
5. Close the loop: who followed up, and when.

From the field

• Field staff who work alone, like housing staff on home visits, are the least likely to file. That creates risk for them personally.
• Have a ready template for escalations: entry date, case manager, interventions, days in program, outside agencies. It saves hours in a crisis.
• Make the narrative box large. Late-night reports get shorter as the box gets smaller.

Drill: Write an incident report for a fictional scenario in under ten minutes, then trade with a partner to check it against the six points above.

Sources

• Guidelines for Preventing Workplace Violence for Healthcare and Social Service Workers (OSHA 3148) (OSHA, 2016)

Heat Season Operations

In Phoenix, summer is an emergency that comes every year.

Maricopa County recorded 430 heat-related deaths in 2025, and 49 percent were people experiencing homelessness. About a quarter died indoors. Heat changes intake, overflow, outreach and safety for months.

Run it like an operation

• Two-stage notice: an early heads-up, then the full order
• Brief in a fixed order: situation, mission, execution, stakes, logistics, command
• Overflow steps down in a planned sequence
• Headcounts several times a day in shared space
• Receipts from day one for billing
• Track burn rate daily and report the run-out date early

How to run it

1. Send the early heads-up as soon as you know a surge is coming.
2. Read the mission word for word in the briefing so everyone hears the same thing.
3. Keep a staff member present in shared overflow space at all times.
4. Update the room roster with every move.
5. Know your cooling and water options for every person you see outdoors.

From the field

• Expect more families as summer starts. Heat and school breaks strain doubled-up households.
• City and county billing is slow and specific. Keep every receipt from the first day.

Drill: It is 9 p.m. during an extreme heat warning. Dedicated units are full and a family arrives. Walk through your options in order.

Sources

• 2025 Heat-Related Deaths Report (Maricopa County Department of Public Health, April 2026)

Staying in It

You cannot pour from an empty cup, and the work drains it daily.

Burnout and secondary traumatic stress are occupational hazards in this field, not personal weakness. Naming them early keeps good people in the work.

Professional quality of life (ProQOL)

• Compassion satisfaction: the good feeling of doing the work well
• Burnout: exhaustion, frustration, feeling ineffective
• Secondary traumatic stress: absorbing the trauma you witness
• Burnout plus secondary traumatic stress together make up compassion fatigue

How to run it

1. Take a self-check like the ProQOL every few months and watch your own trend.
2. Protect one admin block a week for notes and catch-up.
3. Debrief hard cases with someone, not alone in the car.
4. Know your agency's employee assistance options before you need them.

From the field

• New workers do better with one protected admin day a week for notes. Without it, documentation leaks into nights.

Drill: List three signs that you are moving from tired to burned out, and what you will do when you see each one.

Sources

• Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQOL 5) (B. Hudnall Stamm, 2010)
• The Secondary Traumatic Stress-Informed Organization Assessment (Sprang et al., 2014 (hosted by the Office for Victims of Crime))