SVO Social Service Resource Navigation Expansion

Grantee: Seattle Veterinary Outreach
Timeframe: January 2023 – December 2023 | Amount: $27,360

Program activities include one-on-one resource navigation meetings and enhancements to referral follow-up. Nimble grant funds will fund two days (16 hours) of resource navigation meetings and referral follow-up weekly for ten-months. Month one and two of funding will be used to coordinate among community partners, plan and design a short survey instrument to measure program efficacy, and develop the community panel of advisors. Services will be provided in months three through eleven, while month twelve of funding will be focused on program evaluation and presentation of results to funders, collaborators, and community members. Results will be prepared for publication and shared with Nimble to inform and optimize future outreach programming. One-on-one meeting time will be used to facilitate participant applications for services, such as housing applications, scheduling medical/dental/vision appointments, etc.

The primary objective with this grant is to expand SVO’s ability to provide social service referrals and to better support their clients as they navigate service application processes. SVO provides clients with referrals to 12 categories of social services, including: 1) basic needs, 2) medical, 3) casework, 4) transport, 5) hygiene, 6) pet needs, 7) financial, 8) employment, 9) legal, 10) domestic violence support, 11) identification, and 12) veterans services. Thus, both the types of referrals given by SVO and the populations that SVO strategizes to engage in the referral process (PLHLI, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, etc.) directly address social determinants of health disparities by reducing barriers to service seeking. Nimble funding will improve client outcomes by increasing one-on-one assistance to clients to ensure they successfully access and utilize resource navigation referrals.

SVO has a lived experience advisor who helps inform programming and is in the process of forming a community advisory group that will meet four times during this grant period, two pre-project planning meetings, one mid-program check-in, and one wrap-up evaluation meeting. Additionally, SVO is recruiting and developing an external advisory committee of community members with lived experience to seek more regular and systematic community oversight. Committee members will be paid for their time through SVO funding, not from Nimble funding. Finally, during the participant satisfaction survey development process, drafts of the survey will be taken to SVO clinics by the Research Lead, and feedback will be sought from clients before the items are finalized so that what is measured will take into consideration the perspectives of our clients.