Identifying Social Skills That Support Housing Attainment and Retention Among Homeless Persons With Serious Mental Illness

Abstract

Objective: By combining supportive services with independent housing, permanent supportive housing (PSH) programs effectively address homelessness. Yet, many persons with serious mental illness struggle to attain and retain housing in these programs. Social skills—which facilitate social interactions and instrumental tasks—predict premature exit from PSH. This project aimed to build consensus on a set of social skills that supports independent housing attainment and retention among homeless persons with serious mental illness, with a clinical focus on PSH programs. Methods: Guided by the RAND/University of California, Los Angeles, appropriateness method, the set of social skills was developed by using literature review; key informant interviews (N=12), a national consensus panel of experts in psychosocial rehabilitation and homelessness (N=11), and two focus groups with homeless persons with serious mental illness (N=17). Results: These methods identified 24 social skills in seven domains: finding and renting an apartment, using one’s time well, getting closer to people, managing finances, avoiding problems with drugs and alcohol, solving interpersonal problems, and managing one’s health. Expert panelists and focus group participants agreed that these social skills were feasible for inclusion in social skills training and could strongly affect housing outcomes in PSH settings. Conclusions: Consensus was reached about a set of social skills relevant to housing attainment and retention for persons with serious mental illness engaged in PSH. Next steps include modifying social skills training interventions to this skill set, making contextual modifications relevant to the setting and context of PSH, and studying the effectiveness and implementation of the adapted intervention in PSH.

Barreras Sociales, de Salud y de Salud Mental para el Cuidado: La Perspectiva de los Proveedores de Veteranos Sin Hogar

“…Providers emphasized the difficulties these veterans faced by not having social and recreational skills and opportunities to develop them. This is particularly important because social impairment affects the ability of veterans to receive and maintain housing (Gabrielian et al, 2019). Research has found a positive correlation in the importance of treatment environment where patients that participate in more recreational and social activities have an increase in social support (LePage et al, 2006).…”

Testing an implementation package in a housing skills training pilot for homeless-experienced persons with serious mental illness

“…Methods used to tailor this intervention (“Housing Skills Training”) from evidence-based SSTs are described elsewhere ( Gabrielian et al, 2019 ); in brief, we used literature review, key informant interviews, a national expert consensus panel, and two focus groups with PEH-SMI to reach consensus on social skills relevant to housing attainment and retention for PEH-SMI. These skills ( Table 1 ) were selected and adapted from a list of skills used in psychiatric service settings for persons with SMI.…”

Characterisation of social support following incarceration among black sexual minority men and transgender women in the HPTN 061 cohort study

“…We selected covariates that we hypothesised were associated with both incarceration and social support based on the literature and directed acyclic graphs. Demographic covariates included study site at time of enrolment; age29; gender identity defined as cisgender male and transgender female; unstable housing30 defined as reporting lacking a stable home; high school education or less31; and insufficient income31 defined as reporting having insufficient income never or once in a while versus fairly often or very often.…”