LOUISIANA SOCIAL SERVICES
Welcome
Louisiana Social Services has been a side project of mine I have worked on and off of for several years. The purpose of the site is to fulfill several shortcomings I have found in nearly 8 years as a social worker/mental health therapist. It originally started as an online notebook that I shared with coworkers while I was working in a psychiatric hospital in New Orleans.
My main focus at that point was organization. With most jobs I have had in this field, I was given a stack of resources to use when referring patients out of the hospital. And just like most jobs that stack was a mess. It was full of duplicates and outdated information. It had resources copied too many times to be legible any longer. Previous therapists had written notes that were nothing more than chicken scratch. Worse of all, there was no organization to the stack of resources.
We would receive most of our patients from the nearby areas. But we accepted patients from all over the state. When planning discharges I realized how much time was being wasted simply finding out what services were located where. This was especially true for patients who came from out of town. Even when I had a patient discharging to an area I had discharged to before, I didn't always remember what was available in that area of Louisiana. As this website is now, the notebook I began building for myself and my coworkers separated services by various regions of the state.
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Another time waster was making phone calls. Once I found an agency to refer to, they didn't always have all the information I needed to make the referral and fill out my discharge paperwork. What should have been a simple phone call would be several calls before reaching anyone, being put on hold, or leaving messages and never receiving a callback. With Louisiana Social Services I hope you can find not only your referral but all the information necessary for your referral.
Looking Forward
Louisiana Social Services is nowhere near completion. In fact, I don't know if this site can ever truly be complete. However, I did want to be much further than I am before launching and sharing this site with mental health professionals across the state. Since progress on this site has been stop-and-go, I decided that launching the site incomplete was more useful than sitting around.
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In its current state, the site is mostly geared towards mental health professionals being able to quickly make referrals to other mental health services and agencies. It has been my experience that social workers, counselors, and the like are mostly focused on referring to other mental health and substance use providers. This is despite the fact that providers in our field are aware that systemic challenges to housing, food, finances, etc. play a role in our clients' everyday lives and affect their mental health. No amount of cognitive behavioral therapy is going to pay the light bill.
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I am hoping mental health professionals will engage in this site to find resources beyond counseling and substance abuse for their clients. I am also hoping individuals will be able to utilize this site to find services for themselves before their circumstances become too critical.
Throughout this site, there are requests for anyone to submit the resources they know that are available throughout the state of Louisiana. These requests call for mental health services as well as other social services. The request also goes beyond the use of professional services. Grassroots campaigns such as the community fridges in New Orleans have been vital in helping provide basic needs that once again can affect the outcome of an individual's mental health. It has been my experience that many mental health professionals are unaware of such campaigns. It is my goal to increase awareness of these resources to the professionals in our field so they may inform their clients of them along with their other referrals.
Buy Me A Coffee
You may have noticed these yellow icons that say "Buy me a coffee" throughout the site. While using the website is free, hosting and domains are not. I have also put a lot of time in gathering and organizing resources as well as on the design of this site. I am asking everyone who finds use in this site to make a small donation to keep Louisiana Social Services up and running. When you click the link, it will ask that you make a donation of just $1, $2, or $3 a month. You may also offer a one-time donation.
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It is my hope to use this form of fundraising rather than ads. It has been my experience that advertisements often take up too much space, are distracting, and can look like the actual content of the websites. This can be confusing and slow down the use of the site. Louisiana Social Services is designed with efficiency in mind. The "Buy me a coffee" icon takes up minimal space and doesn't detract from the actual content. This helps you find your resources quickly!