Content area
Full text
ABSTRACT The Restorative Integral Support (RIS) model is an application of Integral Theory developed at the Committee on the Shelterless (COTS) to integrate and translate research on adverse childhood experiences and resiliency into practice. Applying RIS, COTS designed a response to adverse childhood experiences that integrated services within the context of intentionally developed healthy environments and relationships that support whole-person programs (Larkin & Records, 2007). It is suggested that as a theoretically based model, grounded in research taking client characteristics into account, RIS is a useful development to address gaps in homeless services evaluation and research. Service outcomes action research (SOAR), a team-based research partnership that could be enhanced through Integral Methodological Pluralism, is proposed as a fitting way to conduct evaluation at COTS and ongoing research on the RIS model. In this way, an integrally enacted SOAR could facilitate social change by opening collaborative pathways of data exchange within and beyond organizations such as COTS. The data-informed practice process (DIPP) offered through SOAR could strengthen the RIS model in diverse agencies, bringing forth the future of Integral Theory in social service.
KEY WORDS adverse childhood experiences; service outcomes action research; homelessness; Integral Methodological Pluralism; social services
With a goal to break intergenerational cycles of homelessness and transform the lives of homeless individuals and families, the Committee on the Shelterless (COTS), a homeless services organization in Petaluma, California, has applied Integral Theory (Wilber, 1995) to program design. Supporting integration of current research on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) (Felitti et al., 1998) and resiliency (Smith & Carlson, 1997), Integral Theory informs a comprehensive homeless services model known as Restorative Integral Support (RIS), which includes and transcends existing, often piecemeal, approaches to homelessness (Larkin & Records, 2007; Larkin et ah, 2012). While research reveals that traumatic stress is a common characteristic among homeless individuals, especially women, and families (Burt, 2001 ; Green et ah, 2012; Hayes et ah, 2013; Padgett et al., 2006), current literature on homeless service delivery does not fully explicate the theory from which homeless service program models are derived or the model's grounding in research on client characteristics. This is important because housing stability is predicted by trauma symptoms, and a gap remains in homeless services research and program evaluations (Hayes...