Overview

How Families Gain Admission

Sheffield Place serves highly traumatized homeless mothers with multiple barriers to success, including: mental health and addiction issues, domestic violence backgrounds, low educational attainment, and felony convictions, among others. Mothers are required to be in residence for 30-days before returning to work. The agency accepts mothers with up to seven children. A mother who meets these criteria is encouraged to call Sheffield Place. Following an initial phone conversation, she may be scheduled for a personal interview and tour.

The Services at Sheffield Place

Sheffield Place offers four fully integrated services to empower the families as they make the difficult journey from homelessness to self-sufficiency:

1) Residential Housing Services provides up to 24 mothers and their children at a time with onsite housing in either the main facility (17 living units) or the nearby SEVI House (7 living units) consisting of a one- or two-room living unit with a private bath and shared kitchen and laundry facilities.

2) Residential Clinical Services provides therapy, strengths-based case management, addiction recovery, and life skills groups (effective parenting, healthy relationships, 12 Step, recovery, job search, personal finance, among many others) for mothers and both group and individual trauma and mental health recovery services for the children.

3) Aftercare/Outpatient Clinical Services provides case management, therapy, and other supportive services such as social events for families once they transition to housing in the community.

4) Permanent Housing Services provides 10 units of permanent housing for families in houses owned and operated by the agency.

Residential Services

Residential Services. Sheffield Place is a nonprofit treatment and supportive housing program on E. 12th Street in Kansas City, Missouri.

More than 100 families (24 homeless mothers and their children at any one time) call Sheffield Place home each year. The average length of stay is approximately three months. The length of stay is tailored to meet the needs of the individual family.

A typical family at Sheffield Place is headed by a mother in her 30's. The family depends on Temporary Aid for Needy Families, food stamps, and Medicaid. The average mother has two children under five years of age. In 2022, 49% of mothers were White, 41% were African American, 8% were of mixed race, and 2% were Native American. Eleven percent of mothers were Hispanic/Latina in ethnicity.

Nearly all of the mothers have a mental health diagnosis, most commonly depression, anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and bi-polar disorder. Most of the mothers have a dual diagnosis of addiction. Most are survivors of domestic violence, and many grew up in foster care and/or were runaways, and left school before completing a high school diploma or GED. Many have felony convictions.

Home at Sheffield Place is a one- or two-room living unit with a private bathroom. Five or six families share a kitchen and dining area on the three residential floors. Families share a common laundry room.

To prepare families for self-sufficiency and the challenges of managing a home, families practice life skills. The mothers care for their own living unit and take responsibility for cleaning shared living spaces. They improve their ability to prepare healthy food on a tight budget, to resolve conflict in a positive manner, to use positive parenting techniques, and to develop healthy relationships. Financial education helps each woman resolve debt and place money in a savings account to begin preparing for the time when she leaves Sheffield Place. Employment search and retention skills training empower the mothers to secure and keep employment.

Residential Clinical Services

Residential Clinical Services provides individual, group, and family therapy for adults and children as well as strengths-based case management for the families who call Sheffield Place home.

Children are the youngest victims of homelessness. They are at risk of additional traumatic experiences. They often experience anxiety, depression or withdrawal. One in three has a major mental health disorder. The children accompany their mothers to Sheffield Place.

Through the Children’s Service (Project H.O.P.E.), Sheffield Place empowers every child to heal from trauma through education, self-discovery, and family support.

Program activities are therapeutic and developmentally-based. The therapists identify risk factors and implement treatment plans for both children and mothers. Structured psycho-educational group activities take place four hours each weekday. Sheffield Place also provides developmental support, individual therapy, parenting coaching, and family activities. The expressive art and other therapeutic activities have expanded the multi-disciplinary approach to family treatment and recovery from trauma.

Through Adult Services, the therapists provide individual and group therapy designed to address the mental health and substance abuse issues of the mothers who live at Sheffield Place. Program activities include assessment, treatment planning and implementation, psycho-educational groups, substance abuse support groups, parenting education, and family therapy.

Each mother at Sheffield Place participates in services that include an hour of individual therapy and an hour strengths-based case management each week as well as group therapy and groups on such topics as women's and children's health, 12-Step, recovery, leadership, healthy eating, positive parenting, healthy relationships, personal financial management, and employment skills, among others.

When a homeless mother and her children arrive at Sheffield Place, Strengths-Based Case Management begins. A case manager measures the woman’s independent living skills and works with her to set goals focused on securing stable housing, increasing income/education, and improving health, including sobriety and effective, positive parenting. Progress toward these goals is reviewed at each weekly case management session.

Aftercare/Outpatient Clinical Services

Aftercare/Outpatient Clinical Services reduces barriers to care by expanding services to the highly traumatized population of homeless women and children once they have stabilized through the residential program and transitioned to stable housing in the community. Case management is provided in the family's home or at the facility along with therapy and other supportive services. The program also serves families that left the program before securing permanent housing. Services are provided to the families for as long as necessary and at no cost.

Families may also participate in regularly scheduled social activities such as the backpack/back-to-school picnic, field trips, and holiday events.

Evidence indicates that the longer these families receive case management and other supportive services, the more successful they will be at maintaining self-sufficiency.

Permanent Housing

Permanent Housing Services. Sheffield Place owns ten units of permanent housing in the neighborhood. Families may transition from the facility once they have stabilized. Families pay adjusted rent and may live in the houses for as long as they wish to do so. Each family in the Permanent Housing Services receives ongoing case management and other supportive services.

Resources

For more information about homelessness and homeless services, please review the following resources:

Additional resources: