Preble Street: Open to Tufts University School of Medicine (Maine)

Monday, June 6th from 12:00am to Friday, July 29th, 2022 12:00am (ET)
The application period has ended or been marked as full.

About

This position is open only to students enrolled at Tufts University School of Medicine
Location: Portland, ME

Organization Overview
The mission of Preble Street is to provide accessible barrier-free services to empower people experiencing problems with homelessness, housing, hunger, and poverty, and to advocate for solutions to these problems. Preble Street has 13 different programs, including Health Services. PS Health Services currently includes the MMC-PS Learning Collaborative and the Medication Assisted Recovery Program (MARP). The MMC-PSLC is a community-based healthcare center for people experiencing homelessness that integrates health care delivery with learning opportunities and social work. MARP is a pilot partnership with Greater Portland Health funded by the office of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services (SAMHS) in which PS staff provide intensive case management as part of a low barrier medication assisted treatment (MAT) outpatient program designed for individuals experiencing homelessness who are at greatest risk of overdose and death.

For more information, visit:
https://www.preblestreet.org/what-we-do/health-services/

Position Description
PS Health Services is ever evolving to meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness with complex healthcare needs. The Health Services Summer Fellow will support the work of the PS Health Services Director and the PSHS casework team. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, we were accustomed to seeing services and resources rapidly shift for the population of people that we serve, and so we prefer to offer a range of possibilities as opposed to a narrowly defined single project. One potential project is supporting a collaborative pilot program at the MMC-PS Learning Collaborative. Our “connections clinic” is for people seeking medication assisted treatment (MAT) who require short term care coordination. The Fellow would work in collaboration with medical providers sited at the MMC-PSLC to help make referrals and support connections to long term MAT care in the community, while assessing and addressing social determinants of health for the clients seeking care. Preble Street Health Services also provides direct client support for in the moment social needs that arise at the MMC-PSLC, as well as systems level advocacy, education, and collaboration through a variety of community meetings. The Health Services Summer Fellow would be able to participate in these shared efforts as part of a collaborative, multidisciplinary team, and there may also be opportunities to engage in research, data analysis, and/or other duties as needs and interest arise. A previous project included the creation of resources for the entire agency on a number of medical topics, including mental health, SUD, and common medications.

Required Skills & Experience
-  Positive regard for individuals experiencing homelessness and/or substance use disorders
-  Strong professional boundaries
-  Familiarity with social determinants of health (SDoH) and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) preferred
-  Experience with harm reduction and low barrier approaches to working with this population preferred
Supervisor(s)
-
Timeframe
Summer
Credit
No