HOUSTON GALVESTON INSTITUTE (HGI)

Geographic areas served: Montrose, Midtown, Harris County, Fort Bend County, Brazoria County, Galveston County

Programs: Agency contracts & fees-social service agency contracts are with governmental entities and/or non-profit entities. We provide counseling and psychotherapy for their clients. We also provide staff training, case consultation, case supervision, employee assistance, programmatic consultation, and crisis management for those agencies. Supervisory and management services of senior faculty are usually donated. The institute also donated services to other public and private non-profit agencies and state programs and provided staff training scholarships to their personnel in our training program.

client services - over eleven hundred individuals, families, and groups were provided approximately 4,700 counseling therapy sessions. Fees are established on a sliding scale, dependent on income. Twenty percent of all services were provided at low or no cost. The majority of all clients come from low-income families and are referred by schools, social, governmental, and other mental health and health care agencies. The institute's clinical services were provided at four locations in harris county.

training and research programs - family therapy, numerous professional publications, counseling, and other training programs provided by the institute served approximately eighteen students on an intensive long term basis this year, and provided brief training and professional continuing education at low cost for over one hundred and fifty mental health agency personnel. A paid doctoral intern was part of the training cohort this year. All internship training and some advanced training is provided at less than cost on a no fee scholarship basis. The institute provided staff training to a variety of other social agencies and educational institutions. The faculty of the institute made numerous professional presentations to the professional mental health community and to national and international professional and scientific associations. The faculty of the institute participated in the publication of research and clinical reports for various mental health journals and publications, and in its own on-line journal called the international journal of collaborative practices, which is free to all. Faculty of the institute have served as officers, editors, and editorial reviewers for numerous professional and scientific publications. Institute faculty have made free contributions in research and education dealing with acute adolescent school-related problems, and burn-out problems of front line agency staff. * hgi walk-in counseling program: started in july of the year, hgi now has a saturday walk-in program, staffed by volunteers and a part-time paid coordinator. Clients are invited to "drop-in" for a session without an appointment. Fees are paid on a sliding scale. *school mental health: hgi has been working collaboratively to provide accessible mental health services, including identification, promotion, prevention, and intervention, to children and adolescents in schools in southwest and southeast houston. Hgi has been providing these services for many years and has built important and valuable collaborations with both the participating elementary schools as well as communities in schools (cis). Currently, hgi is serving on high school and three elementary schools. Cis is an important partner and helps maximize our program's effectiveness since they identify the students who are most appropriate for our services.