As the month of February is often filled with an array of chocolate hearts, candy hearts, and stuffed bears holding hearts, we wanted to share more about Lifelong’s HART.
Lifelong's High Acuity Response Team (HART) supports our most vulnerable clients who have the greatest barriers to care. Isolation, mental health, and chronic homelessness are just a few of the obstacles that these clients living with HIV are facing every day. HART Case Managers work on a very targeted, individualized level of care for connection, social support, and normalization to reengage clients back into the community.
Scott Hix, a member of our HARTeam, recently shared a story about a client who was receiving medical case management services, along with receiving medically tailored meals from Chicken Soup Brigade (CSB), but was referred to Scott because he wasn’t responding to his current care team.
After several attempts of trying to make contact, Scott first met with the client from outside of his home and talking through the client’s kitchen window.
The client is affected by agoraphobia and hoarding behaviors, so Scott built his relationship with him by continuing to only speak through the window. This individualized level of care that HART provides helped the client to eventually feel comfortable enough to invite Scott into his home, making Scott the first person to enter in over 10 years.
The first project they worked on was cleaning the client’s kitchen, which prompted conversation, a sense of teamwork, and trust.
Scott learned that the client developed his phobias from PTSD and trauma after losing friends to AIDS, cancer, pneumonia, drugs, and alcohol, but he also learned that his client was an artist and his home was filled with artifacts and materials from his creative career.
This highly targeted tactic for relationship building was made possible through HART’s ability to meet the client where they are at and care for them on the client’s terms.
Over the next 11 months, Scott met with the client on a weekly basis and helped him find new ways to better take care of himself and also got him reengaged in care.
The client even sorted through the rest of his home, cleared it out, and decided to move into a new home that was better suited for him to maintain.
During a weekly coffee chat with Scott, the client told him that he wanted to try to manage his next steps by himself and ended his official relationship with HART.
“This is the very best reason for being fired by your client,” Scott explains.
This is what health equity looks like within our HARTeam, consisting of Scott, Alison, and Dale, who help our most marginalized clients. Their day-to-day work is much different from that of a medical case manager or a CSB care advocate. Their roles help clients overcome barriers that are unique to each individual client, with the goal of getting them to live their most successful and healthy life.
Have a heart and support Lifelong’s HART this February:
Here is some of what your gift can do:
$10 gives HART Case Managers and clients an opportunity to meet in the community at a local coffee shop. This is crucial for building the foundation for a client to feel more normalized and have ability to reintegrate into a society where they have felt outcast for so long.
$25 provides 5 bus vouchers for HART Case Managers to visit clients where they live. This level of social support is a vital element to gain trust and fight the barriers that have kept clients from care.
$50 gives a client a thrift store voucher to purchase needed items for their day-to-day survival. Connecting clients to something like a backpack or coffee pot can create a positive experience with the hopes of helping them feel ready to reengage back into community.