Connecting Research to Practice
Motivational and Cognitive Predictors of Community Integration in Recently-Housed Veterans
Tuesday, March 10, 2020, 1:00-2:00 pm ET
Michael Foster Green, PhD
Director, VA Research Enhancement Award Program (REAP) on Enhancing Community Integration for Homeless Veterans and Treatment Unit of the VA Desert Pacific Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC)
Distinguished Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA
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Presenters
Jonathan K. Wynn, PhD
Health Science Specialist, VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System
Research Psychologist, Semel Institute, UCLA
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Sonya Gabrielian, MD, MPH
Health Services Researcher and Psychiatrist, VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA
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Cendrine Robinson, PhD, MPH
Scientific Program Manager, Behavioral Health & Social Reintegration, VA Rehabilitation Research & Development Service (RR&D)
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Overview
Community integration -- connections to friends and family, work and productive activities, managing activities of daily living -- is a general problem for persons with many clinical psychiatric disorders and other vulnerable populations, including individuals experiencing homelessness. One important public health goal is to improve recovery for Veterans with a history of homelessness, though this goal remains elusive, partly because we do not know the determinants of community integration for these individuals.
The largest VA program to address homelessness involves a partnership between the Department of Housing and Urban Development and VA Supportive Housing -- the HUD-VASH program. This program has helped to reduce rates of homelessness among Veterans, but the broader goal of achieving community integration for Veterans once they receive housing has received much less attention.
Dr. Michael Green and Dr. Jonathan Wynn, researchers at both VA and UCLA, will share findings from two studies that looked at changes in community integration before and after Veterans were housed. They compared samples of recently housed Veterans with and without psychosis in the HUD-VASH program to determine the extent to which nonsocial cognition (e.g., attention, memory, speed of processing, problem solving), social cognition (e.g., identifying emotion in faces, tracking someone’s changes in mood), and motivation (negative symptoms and motivational beliefs) were predictive of community integration. Following the presentation Dr. Sonya Gabrielian, psychiatrist and researcher at VA Greater Los Angeles, and Dr. Cendrine Robinson, Scientific Program Manager in the VA’s Rehabilitation Research & Development Service, will discuss the clinical implications of the research findings and what kinds of recovery-oriented interventions practitioners in the field might consider to improve community integration outcomes.
Audience: Multi-disciplinary staff serving homeless Veterans. Participants may include but are not limited to physicians, nurses, psychologists, social workers, counselors, case managers, housing specialists, peer support specialists, team leaders, supervisors, and Network Homeless Coordinators.
Modality: Virtual conference (webinar)
Credit/hours: 1
Accreditations: ACCME, ACCME-NP, ANCC, APA, ASWB, NBCC, NYSED, SW
VANTS: 1-800-767-1750 Passcode: 92715# for audio to hear the presentation
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Objectives
At the conclusion of this educational program, learners will be able to:
- Identify the goals of the HUD-VASH program and the services provided.
- Identify the key components of community integration.
- Distinguish the differences in the goals of providing housing versus recovery from homelessness.
- Identify the factor that is the largest correlate and predictor of community integration in the researchers’ studies of recently-housed Veterans.
For more information on the webinar, please call Nora Hunt-Johnson (215) 823-5800 x 207087 or email Nora.Hunt-Johnson@va.gov
The National Center on Homelessness among Veterans promotes the development of policy and practice that targets ending and preventing Veteran homelessness through supporting the implementation of relevant research findings into clinical practice, providing education and training for VA and community partners, disseminating evidence-based and emerging best practices, and developing new empirical knowledge. Connecting Research to Practice presents current research on homeless populations that has implications for the field. This occasional forum provides clinicians, VA homeless program managers, and front line staff the opportunity to discuss particular research studies and how findings might be considered in planning, developing, or implementing services for Veterans with experience of homelessness.
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