I've been thinking a lot lately about how to shift my social work to a prevention-based frame work while doing community based interventions. Part of the community based model is to work in the clients' homes rather than an office but that is only part of it. I work a lot in schools with teachers and guidance counselors trying to be optimally collaborative particularly with my most difficult younger clients. What I end up thinking about and putting on my wish list is a community based model that includes mentors for my clients, tutors for those who have appalling reading skills because that is a cause of a lot of their anxiety, and places in the community, schools for instance, where they can go that are safe, stay open until 9 pm or so, and that provide tutoring, mentors, tutoring and drop-in counseling. I've been working to provide these features at no-cost to the community, e.g using trained volunteers, local college students, as mentors and tutors. That works but it is a lot of work. The centers exist as bricks and mortar but often there are problems getting to use the space and there are overhead costs. Groups are another key feature of community based work, I think, but really challenging to get past the insurance companies. I've had to become resourceful and innovative in creating groups for youths (A college bound group for instance) and a group for single mothers who are receiving multiple services from welfare agencies and DCF.