Social work and social work principles are the heart of the work at the MH-PSLC. Preble Street social work staff and MaineHealth’s Homeless HealthPartners (HHP) case management team are co-located on-site. They build relationships with vulnerable, unhoused people in the community and establish a foundation of trust – listening to people, getting to know them as individuals, and helping them to meet basic needs, with food, toiletries, and other essential items. Dr. Adam Normandin is a family medicine physician at the MH-PSLC. He says, “here, our work starts with addressing the barriers to receiving treatment.” Another family medicine provider at the MH-PSLC, Dr. Debra Rothenberg, adds, “we practice what we call ‘slow medicine.’ We listen and learn who are patients are before we intervene medically.”

Preble Street and MaineHealth social work staff help people to navigate the complicated medical system, educating people on what resources exist, getting them to appointments, and moving people away from using costly services, like the emergency room. Dr. Rothenberg says, “our social workers work intensely alongside people in the community on how to navigate the medical system, empowering them with the information and tools to do it themselves too.” The social work staff at the MH-PSLC is what makes the medical work possible. Preble Street Director of Health Services, Caroline Fernandes, explains, “Many, for the first time, get major medical issues addressed because of the relationships they develop in this space.”