Perspectives on Case Manager Project - Research Paper Example

In part one, a team of two researchers carried out an eighteen in-person interviews (Fattoruso & Quinn, 2007). Notably, when one of two staff researchers was not available, either the interview proceeding was recorded or the project attorney carried on as, a substitute to maintain consistency of the interviews. More significantly, all stakeholders participated voluntarily and were subjected to the same set of questions. The open-ended questions interview took place at a location chosen by the interviewee within an average time of one hour.

More so, these interviews occurred between October 2010 and December 2010 after the project had been in the market for six months. The full set of interview questions are located in “Appendix A” of this report while below is a description of the total number of interviewees and job categories: Bench Officers: One full-time dependency court Judge and one dependency Judge working part-time in criminal cases. Attorneys: Five dependency attorneys—three individual interviews, group of two attorneys.

Social Worker’ from the Human Services Agency, Children’s Services Division: Three emergency response social workers, one Division Chief, and two treatment unit supervisors overseeing programs of group homes, residential treatment, placements, adoptions, and commencement planning. County Unified School District Staff: One superintendent secretary, and one child welfare linked with custody of student records. Local Community Based Organization: A focus group interview consisting of one Executive Director, one Associate Executive Director of Programs, and one Clinical Program Manager.

This agency provides a wide range of services designed to foster healthy families. The researchers’ objectives of the stakeholder interview were to gain an understanding and discuss the project in terms of—communication, goals, teamwork and collaboration, resources, and impacts of the case manager position Communication Researchers received a wide variation of responses based on how often the stakeholder’s role communicated with the case manager. More significantly, each stakeholder had a different role and thus, communication with the case manager took place at different times and for different reasons.

Only eleven percent of interviewees were able to give researchers a frequency of how often the communication occurs. Another eleven percent stated that communications occurred by either phone or email. In addition, researchers received key information about caseload type(s) and reasons as, to why communication among stakeholders is widespread or not. Notably, one interviewee stated that, “half of my cases have contact with the case manager…my caseload is up to 100.” Along the same lines, seventeen percent of interviewees mentioned that because the caseload for the target population is so low, they hardly ever cross paths (Fattoruso & Quinn, 2007).

Conversely, twenty-two percent of interviewees noted that they have never worked with the case manager. Moreover, the variation in responses depended on various settings. Seventeen percent of interviewees attested to the fact that their communications were in settings such as, formal meetings and dependency hearings. More significantly, twenty-two percent of interviewees provided examples of the educational issues comprising of requests for school credits, graduation options, school changes, and continuing education as, they worked with the c