RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT III

Santa Maria Hostel

Running Head: SANTA MARIA HOSTEL 2

SANTA MARIA HOSTEL 2

Santa Maria Hostel

Introduction

Santa Maria serves the women and children of Houston and the surrounding area since the mid-1950s. It offers vital services and life-changing support to women by providing a pathway to success through recovery. Its mission is to empower women and their families to lead healthy, prosperous, self-fulfilling, and productive lives. The facility offers services to low-income, substance use and co-occurring mental health disorders. indignant adult women in over twelve countries. Primarily provided below will highlight some of the events and services carried out by the facility.

Social Work/Welfare History

It began with an 18-year old that aged out of CPS needing a place to live. Nuns would go to the jail to offer homeless women a place to stay, and the women were taken to a home on paschal. It was discovered that the vast majority of the women were on drugs and alcohol problems. Santa Mari Hostel was started; they parted ways from the catholic church and became a free-standing treatment facility with 17 women. In 1994, Cheryl Empey (Director)and Kay Austin (Program Director) wrote a State Grant to allow clients and their children to live with them while they seek treatment. Santa Maria Hostel is the first treatment center in the state of Texas to allow children. Mr. Austin (LMSW) is the first male and the first social worker to work for Santa Maria Hostel; he is still on board today advocating for women and children.

A significant event in Santa Maria's history is Yolanda's Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder (FASD) journey. Yolanda is the kind of mother that all women hope to be for their children and Agency. Yolanda suffered from low self-esteem while she was young and depended on alcohol and other drugs from 19 to 35. She was in and out of prison and continued using drugs to the point that she even used cocaine (Kaushik & Walsh 2019). At the age of 26, she bore a child who suffered from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder. Yolanda was also diagnosed with HIV and started receiving early childhood intervention to help her manage herself and her baby. Yolanda became free of her addiction and started learning new skills and coping mechanisms, and she is currently pursuing a master's degree. Yolanda has become a mentor for many women as her child is also learning even with the circumstances.

Another event that has had an enormous impact in Santa Maria is the trauma cases it has received. Trauma is a disorder that results from severe mental or emotional stress. Some people will refer to it as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Santa Maria treats trauma disorders through a commitment to trauma-informed care and treatment. They identified the need for counseling and programming that a person needs to get to a healthy state. The other significant event is the holiday helpers. During the festive season, meaningful gifts and toys are given to mothers with new-born babies at Santa Maria Hostel. It allows the community to appreciate women trying to overcome drugs and other disorders (Santa Maria., 1997).

Structure of services and institutions

Santa Maria Hostel's executive team is headed by Elizabeth, assisted by Keith's name's vice-chair. The treasurer, secretary, and past Chair take part in ensuring that the organization is successful. The board of directors is there to invigilate all actions and provide proper activities (Santa-Maria 2021). The Agency is a non-profit organization that depends on government funds, private foundations, and community support to financing Santa Maria Hostel operates under a federal block grant administered by the Health and Human Service.

Santa Maria focuses on several activities that include the road to recovery for mothers, baby and mother bonding initiative, caring for two, court liaison services, prevention services, and recovery support activities.

The Maternal Initiative for Reflective Recovery-Oriented Residential Services

(MIRRORS) program is a family-focused medical and behavioral health services for the residential pregnant and postpartum mothers and their children and other family members. Court Liaison services are also available. The program has family coaches that will advance family service and reunification plans while working with CPS caseworkers and mediate for families.

Outpatient services are offered main treatment choices with importance on relapse prevention of recovery within the community setting. Group, family, and individual counselling sessions are presented as part of the program, and childcare is available. The outpatient program provides Substance use disorder treatment and relapse prevention, PTSD counseling, aftercare, Peer Recovery Support, a safe and healthy, supportive nurturing environment Individualized treatment plans (Santa Maria,2010).

One of the most important first steps in recovery is detoxification. This program is uniquely the only one of its kind in the region to reassure this level of service to non-insured women with their children at Santa Maria Hostel. The medical staff screens withdrawal from alcohol and opioids. Women are then offered the opportunity to transition into residential treatment following detox. Santa Maria Hostel has a full medical staff on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Santa Maria Hostel has housing resources for homeless women and children. Hope Housing Project offers stable housing and life skills, education, and vocational assistance. Supportive services include; case-manager, childcare, transportation, and assistance—this program is offered for12 months (Santa Maria,2010).

Women Helping Ourselves (WHO)a six-month program that is a treatment alternate for incarcerated women or was headed to TDCJ. This program focuses on women with substance use disorders that meet specific program standards offenders are pregnant, or possibly postpartum, or have serious health issues. Clients attend classes that will address criminal thinning chemical dependency, life skills, relapse prevention, parenting skills, anger management, and women's issues. COPSD, Family counseling, family education, and individual education are also a part of the program.

The institution should also ensure post-check-up treatment for children and mothers being released to the environment. This ensures that habits like addiction and stress do not encounter them and are willing to seek guidance in case of a need. However, the program is costly for the institution as the running activities also expend some costs. That is why a proper evaluation is needed to cover the expenses. Santa Maria Hostel offers services just like other institutions (Santa-Maria 2021). Their relationship is that they want to bring the community members' welfare and wellness up and be productive.

Policy Analysis

The most common policy analysis methodologies are cost-benefit analysis, needs assessment, and secondary data analysis. Organizations tend to analyze decisions, systems, and projects by determining the value of intangibles. The model is constructed by identifying the benefits of an action and subtracting costs from the services. Santa Maria Hostel can devise a cost-benefit analysis to analyze whether the benefits chosen in an option exceed the price. A needs assessment is essential in the institution as it determines and addresses needs or gaps between current conditions and desired conditions (Santa-Maria 2021). The discrepancy between the current situation and wanted condition must be measured to identify the organization's need.

Santa Maria can adopt these strategies when analyzing an option: they will start by setting a plan on the opportunity. It will be followed by the option's formulation, after which the decision is chosen to adopt the situation. The policy is implemented and evaluated to check whether it performs as it should be. Santa Maria Hostel has to abide by several laws that govern the conduct of its activities. They will start by accepting all state laws within their jurisdiction and ensuring that they are on good terms with the governing institutions (Santa-Maria 2021). They have to report their annual statements to the IRS and ensure that all agreements contracted by them are followed by the letter.

Effects of Policy on Client Populations from diverse backgrounds

Santa Maria provides services for over 1663 women and children. Seventy-eight percent of them are single. Ninety-four percent were unemployed. Fifty-two percent had not graduated high school. Eighty-nine percent were homeless or had no permanent, stable living environment. Forty-three percent had an active CPS case. Forty percent were victims of domestic abuse. Seventy-eight had co-occurring psychiatric disorders. Ninety-nine percent were at or below the poverty level. Santa Maria Hostel ensures that women in the facility feel safe to compose themselves make themselves comfortable. This works well for the organization as most women get out of the facility healthier and better. The population at Santa Maria Hostel is predominately white, the Hispanic, Black many clients at Santa Maria are self-check-in, and some are paid through private insurance or cash (Santa-Maria 2021).

How social workers influence social policy

Social workers advocate helping individuals, families, and groups cope with problems they face to improve their clients' lives—social workers teaching skills and developing mechanisms for patients to rely on to better their lives and experiences. Social workers serve as liaisons between different organizations to assist clients and join forces with other healthcare professionals to safeguard patient well-being. Familiarity with all possibilities and to refer clients to community resources. Social Workers also engage in research, policy development, and advocacy for services (Raymond, Beddoe & Staniforth 2017).

Generalists application of social policy

Social policy purposes are to improve human welfare and meet human needs for education, health, housing, and economic security. The social policy addresses how states and societies respond to global social demographic and economic change, poverty, migration, and globalization. Social policy analyses the different roles of national governments, governments, families, and international organizations in providing essential services and support across the life course from childhood to old age. These services and support include child and family support, schooling and education, housing and neighborhood renewal, income maintenance and poverty reduction, and unemployment support. The overall objectives are to identify and find ways of reducing inequalities in access to services and support between social groups defined by social-economic status, race, ethnicity, and age between countries (Dukelow & Considine 2017).

References

Dukelow, F., & Considine, M. (2017). Irish social policy: A critical introduction. Policy Press.

Kaushik, V., & Walsh, C. A. (2019). Pragmatism as a research paradigm, implications for social work. Social Sciences, 8(9), 255.

Raymond, S., Beddoe, L., & Staniforth, B. (2017). Social worker's experiences with whistleblowing: To speak or not to speak?. a New Zealand Social Work, 29(3), 17.

Santa-Maria (2021). Santa Maria Hostel: addiction recovery, housing, prevention, and intervention programs. Retrieved from https://www.santamariahostel.org/