Your Name and Title: Laura Harrington (she/her), community resource specialist
Library, School, or Organization Name: Seattle Public Library
Co-Presenter Name(s): none
Area of the World from Which You Will Present: Seattle, WA, USA
Language in Which You Will Present: English
Target Audience(s): library staff interested in supporting patrons experiencing homelessness and other social services needs
Short Session Description (one line): Learn about the three-pronged approach Seattle Public Library has adopted to help patrons in need of social services be successful in our library.
Full Session Description (as long as you would like): It's not possible for every library to be everything to everyone -- and yet, we're often asked, implicitly or explicitly, to do just that. How can we both provide supportive service and protect ourselves from scope-creep? The Seattle Public Library social services team thinks about our work in three categories: 1) Direct service with patrons in need of social service information and referral; 2) Staff training and capacity building across our system; and 3) Partnerships and programming. By using these three approaches, we are building a program that can be immediately responsive to folks in need, while also integrating into the wider network of service providers and more clearly delineate what we can (and equally important, what we can't) do as the library. In this session, I will describe these three approaches in more detail and provide examples of how we're enacting each one.
Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session: https://www.spl.org/SocialServices
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