D. Fisk et al., Outreach workers' experiences in a homeless outreach project: Issues of boundaries, ethics and staff safety, PSYCHIAT Q, 70(3), 1999, pp. 231-246
Mental health professionals and researchers have emphasized the importance
of conducting outreach to locate homeless persons with mental illness, and
of creatively engaging these persons into a therapeutic relationship. These
outreach and engagement activities raise challenging issues in the areas o
f client-staff boundaries, professional ethics, and staff safety. While sev
eral issues in each of these three key areas have received attention in the
growing literature on homelessness, certain issues within each area remain
unexplored. The authors draw from the street experiences of outreach staff
in a federally funded homeless outreach project to further explore each of
these areas, and suggest that experiences of outreach workers are essentia
l in shaping and redefining work activities in these, and other important a
reas.