Equips those who provide services to people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness and who need or are in substance abuse or mental illness treatment with guidelines to support their care. Discusses prevention and treatment as part of integrated care.

This Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) is divided into three parts:
• Part 1: A practical guide for the provision of behavioral health services
• Part 2: An implementation guide for behavioral health program administrators
• Part 3: A review of the literature

Part 1 is for behavioral health service providers and consists of two chapters. Chapter 1 illustrates typical problems and issues that arise in behavioral health counseling with people who have experienced or currently are experiencing homelessness. It covers:
• Approaches that address the counselor’s setting, role, and responsibilities.
• Screening/assessment, client-centered treatment planning, treatment processes, and continuing care.
Part 1, Chapter 2, presents seven vignettes; each describes the setting in which the counselor is providing services, step-by-step instructions for specific counseling techniques, and master clinician comments. A decision tree is also included in the Francis vignette to help counselors manage key points of therapy. The techniques can be applied to and adapted for other settings. Vignettes are based on role-played interactions staged by consensus panelists.

Part 2 is for program administrators and consists of two chapters addressing the following topics about servicing people who are homeless:
• Collaboration with other service providers to provide comprehensive services
• Service modifications to meet the individual needs of clients
• Providing training and staffing programs that serve people who are homeless
• Providing outreach and engagement, intensive care, and ongoing rehabilitation services
• Resources for implementation of best practices, including sample policies and procedures

Part 3 is a literature review on the topic of homelessness and behavioral health services and is intended for use by clinical supervisors, interested providers, and administrators. Part 3 has threesections: an analysis of the literature, links to select abstracts of the references most central to the topic, and a general bibliography of the available literature. To facilitate ongoing updates (performed periodically for up to 3 years from first publication), the literature review is only available online at the Knowledge Application Program Web site (http://kap.samhsa.gov).