Street Outreach Workflow

Do you work in Street Outreach? If so, read on for some important information on some commonly missed data elements, and a report that can help you track them.

For Street Outreach clients, there should be an interim update in the Entry/Exit for every contact you have with a client. For information on how to complete an interim update, scroll to the bottom of this page. When you record this update, you will, at a minimum, complete the Current Living Situation sub-assessment. This is how you track contacts in Street Outreach.

Have you and your Street Outreach client agreed to work on case management together? At that point, you would also enter a Date of Engagement. This date must be on or after the Project Start Date, and prior to the Exit Date. There can only be one Date of Engagement per Entry.  

Data quality on the CAPER and QDQ begin at Date of Engagement, so make sure you have completed all the universal and program-specific data elements when you do that update.

For more information on requirements for your funding type, please visit our Forms and Instructions page. There you will find user guides and data entry forms.

Want to track whether you have completed these data elements, or look for clients who should perhaps be exited? We have a report for that!

The 278 Contact and Engagement Monitoring report can be used to track the Date of Engagement and Current Living Situation (formerly known as Contacts) data elements. These elements contain important information about how people are served in these programs. With this report, providers can manage data quality and identify clients who may need follow-up or to be exited from the program.

Providers can also demonstrate the volume of their service through summary counts of contacts and persons engaged.

If you have questions about the 278 Contact and Engagement Monitoring report or these data elements, please contact the Helpdesk at mnhmis@icalliances.org.

Program-Specific Data Elements

Program Specific Data Elements have been chosen by your funder and are often unique to the types of projects they fund. More information about these data elements can be found in the HMIS Data Standards Manual.

Current Living Situation

Project Type Applicability: Street Outreach

Data Collected About: Head of Household and Adults

Data Collection Point: Occurrence Point (At the Time of Contact)

Rationale: To record each contact with people experiencing homelessness by street outreach and other service projects and to provide information on the number of contacts required to engage the client, as well as to document a current living situation as needed in any applicable project.

Data Collection Instructions: Record the date and Current Living Situation of each interaction with a client. The first Current Living Situation will occur at the same point as Project Start Date. A Current Living Situation must be recorded any time a client is met, including when a Date of Engagement or Project Start Date is recorded on the same day. There may or may not be a Current Living Situation recorded at project exit.

The data element Current Living Situation has several dependent questions, but street outreach projects are required only to record the following:

• Information Date: This is the date the interaction took place. In ServicePoint, you will record a Start Date that matches the Information Date.

• Current Living Situation: Select the most accurate option from the list of responses.

Date of Engagement

Project Type Applicability: Street Outreach

Data Collected About: Head of Household and Adults

Data Collection Point: Occurrence Point (At the Point of Engagement)

Rationale: To record the date the client became ‘engaged’ in project services after one or more contacts with outreach or night-by-night shelter.

Data Collection Instructions: Record the date a client became engaged by a street outreach project or night-by-night emergency shelter in the development of a plan to address their situation. The date on which an interactive client relationship results in a deliberate client assessment or beginning of a case plan.

Only one date of engagement is allowed between project start and exit. This date may be on or after the Project Start Date and if the client becomes engaged, must be on or prior to the Project Exit Date. If the project has not developed this intensive relationship with the client before exit, Date of Engagement should be left blank.

 If the client returns after a project exit, a new Project Start Date and a new Date of Engagement is to be established.