When examining the jurisdictions in Canada and the United States that have been most effective in reducing homelessness, system coordination and the collection of real-time data are uniformly practiced. To properly coordinate a system of care and measure meaningful data, community services must utilize a common assessment tool. This allows for communities to account for each person individually, measure progress, and target their resources effectively. Furthermore, it promotes a coordinated entry approach: no matter where a person enters the system, they can access the services they require. For Peel service providers, this common assessment tool is the VI-SPDAT.
The Vulnerable Index – Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool (VI-SPDAT) is a prescreen triage tool that aims to prioritize access to services for the most vulnerable populations in need of housing. It combines the strengths of a hybrid prescreening tool that covers medical risk factors (VI) with social risk factors (SPDAT), making it the most effective standardized assessment tool available. The tool is evidence-informed, criteria-driven and has years of rigorous testing and refinement that contribute to its high reliability and validity. Additionally, it covers a broad range of both risk and protective predispositional factors for homelessness and is designed to foster authentic communication between the interviewee and the caseworker.
The VI-SPDAT is brief, can be easily administered by non-clinical staff, and worded in a way that is easily understood by those being assessed. Once the information is collected, it is easy to implement into the regional information system to generate a score.
