NJAMHAA News Winter 2023

22 Winter 2023 Eva’s Village Meets Basic Needs, Engages People in Treatment and Recovery Services While most provider organizations are structured so that individuals’ substance use disorder (SUD) and mental health treatment requirements are identified first, Eva’s Village is unique in that many of its behavioral health clients first come to Eva’s for help with social services issues, such as hunger and homelessness. Eva’s meets these basic needs when individuals arrive and during these interactions, the staff discover other types of services that are required. In fact, the agency was founded 40 years ago serving “simplemeals of franks and beans to 30 hungry guests. It quickly became a hub offering free medical and mental health screenings, as well as referrals to substance use programs, social services, and job opportunities,” as described on Eva Village’s website. A few years after its founding, Eva’s Village opened emergency shelters. Within several years that followed, SUD treatment and recovery programs were created and over the following decades, services were expanded tomeet themost urgent needs for vulnerablemembers of the Paterson community. Currently, the Community Kitchen at Eva’s Village serves almost 400meals a day to community neighbors (in addition to serving the residents in the emergency shelters and halfway houses) and helps thousands of individuals every year. “When people come to Eva’s Village for shelter and breakfast or lunch, we establish a rapport with them and uncover the root causes of why they are where they are. Those causes are usually substance use and/or mental health issues,” said Howard Haughton, Chief Executive Officer. “We offer social services to meet individuals’ basic needs and through that, we introduce them to behavioral healthcare services.” Haughton joined Eva’s Village in 2019 after having served in the C-suite at two social service organizations, Riverside Church and City Harvest. “I was attracted to the opportunity at Eva’s Village to meet people where they are, where the greatest needs are, and to leverage my previous experience to help more people,” he said. Eva’s Village has continued to grow under Haughton’s leadership and through expanded partnerships with the City of Paterson and other local organizations. Amore recently established collaboration is with Building Healthier, More Equitable Communities (BHEC), an initiative to provide housing and affordable, higher quality childcare services for families in Paterson. Within the agency itself, Haughton’s goal is to use data to improve quality of care and achieve better health outcomes. “I am striving for our agency to be hyper-focused on building best-in- class wraparound services with partners. I also want to demonstrate that we’re subject matter experts. We’ve got 40 years of experience behind us and each day, we’re creating new partnerships with organizations that fill in the gaps where we do not provide service. If you come to Eva’s, we’ll make sure you get the care you need, whether it is through our own service offerings or through referrals to other service providers,” Haughton said. As Haughton and his team are collaborating with several other organizations in Paterson, they are also building larger partnerships through their involvement with NJAMHAA. “I established connections with agencies throughout New Jersey. We share information, take on new topics, identify new initiatives and engage NJAMHAA in advocacy in a way that represents what’s best for Eva’s Village and the community we serve,” Haughton said. “NJAMHAA is extremely useful and necessary in the environment we’re in. NJAMHAA and its practice groups, subcommittees and councils offer valuable information and other resources. They keep us in touch with agency standards and norms and bring us into the fold of areas in which we need assistance and guidance,” Haughton added. “ When people come to Eva’s Village for shelter and breakfast or lunch, we establish a rapport with them and uncover the root causes of why they are where they are.” Howard L. Haughton Chief Executive Officer Eva’s Village “