By Melanie Dallas, LPC
In January 2023 Highland Rivers Behavioral Health announced a partnership with Findhelp, an online social care platform that allows people to search for area resources by zip code. Using Findhelp, community members can find local providers for such things as food assistance, housing assistance, legal help, employment opportunities, healthcare and more (all of Highland Rivers’ programs are listed on the site).
Highland Rivers invested in this resource because as a public safety-net agency, the individuals and families we serve often have other priority needs – perhaps food or housing insecurity, or medical or dental care – and Findhelp allows our clinicians, case managers and other team members to identify services, and to make referrals right through the platform.
Another important part of this partnership is our ability see the types and locations of the searches that are made. Even though searches are anonymous, our agency can gain tremendous insights into the most common needs of our local communities and how those needs vary across the counties we serve.
We’ve recently compiled the Findhelp search data from all of 2023, from Highland Rivers’ public Findhelp site (https://highlandrivers.findhelp.com/), and a staff-only site team members use when working with individuals receiving services from our agency. The data is both interesting and compelling.
There were 8,661 total searches on Highland Rivers’ Findhelp sites in 2023. Housing was the largest category of searches during the year, accounting for nearly 35% of all searches. The most common search term was “Help find housing,” though others – “Temporary shelter,” “Help pay for housing,” “Housing vouchers,” and “Long-term housing” – were also very common. This was not entirely surprising given the challenges of the housing market in Georgia, but is a clear indication that housing remains a top need in almost every county we…
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