Issues Involved in the Implementation of Casework and Case Management to Assess Their Effectiveness - Essay Example

Critical Analysis of the Major Issues Involved In the Implementation of Casework and Case Management Practice to Assess Their Effectiveness in Contemporary Service Delivery Name: Institution: Date: Introduction The terms casework and case management have been commonly used in social work and health care industry with different interpretations in different countries. However, all the definitions identify and converge to a similar aim. Casework Casework is a professional form of practice of community service concerned with day-to-day assisting of individuals and families. It is a practice component in the case management model which provides direct service to people in the community. Casework includes things such as practical assistance to individuals and families, resolving issues related to resources, interpersonal interventions to help with a personal or emotional problem (Gursansky, Kennedy, & Camilleri, 2012). Generally, casework comprises of continuous assessment of risk and safety, implementation of a case plan, building relationships with individuals, families and communities, support and coordination of services and monitoring (Fook, 1993). The values and theories that underpin casework as a community service approach include: i. Willingness to cooperatively work with the individual, family or community that needs assistance. ii. Genuine concern for the client receiving assistance. iii. Respect for the client irrespective of their culture, beliefs, history, gender or social class. iv. A belief that regardless of the situation, it is possible for an individual to change their lives. v. Willingness to have an open and sincere relationship with the client. vi. A belief that self-reliance is a better cultivation than client rescue. vii. A belief that the client own the rights to make their own choices to determine which path of life they value. viii. Commitment to best community practice; including commitment to supervision as well as participation in activities involving professional development. ix. The client has to take the responsibility for their actions. x. Keeping a client’s confidentiality. The goals of casework to clients include the following: i. To assist individuals in creating a meaningful life out of their own value system. ii. To build an individual’s self-efficacy. iii. To resource people so that they can become personally responsible for their own lives and become self-reliant (Gursansky, Harvey, & Rosemary, 2003). Case Management Case management is a collaborative process that involves identifying vulnerable situations, assessment of needs, planning, facilitating for referral options and services or implementation, and follow-up to meet the holistic needs of an individual as well as promoting quality and cost-effective outcomes through communication and use of the available resources (Case Management Society of Australia, 2009). A case manager has the role of assessing the situation, coordinating appropriate services based on the availability and cost, creating a plan for care, and monitoring the outcomes (Cooper & Yarmo Roberts, 2006). Trained social workers as well as community service volunteers play the key role in case management, even though they often face challenges such as administrative burdens and workloads that tend to shift their focus from addressing vulnerable and complex situations (Chamberlain & MacKenzie, 1992). The social work principles that underpin case management practice include: i. Client centredness. Case management should occur as close to the client as possible to ensure that the desired needs are met. ii. Proactive. Case management prioritizes on advance action to identify risks, needs and potential barriers early enough, rather than focusing on reactive responses. iii. Focus on strength-based practice. This approach identifies and develops the capacity of a client including resilience, support systems and coping mechanisms. iv. Inclusion of active involvement of people and communities in the process. Clients have an active role in developing the desired case plan, as well as identifying the required service responses. v. Promoting partnerships and share of decision making among service providers to facilitate successful achievement of the set goals. These partnerships benefits the client through commitment to collaboration, clarity of purpose, participation, good leadership and sensitive approach. vi. Supporting self-determination of persons. vii. Holistic approach. Being responsive to a person’s beliefs or a community’s culture to which they identify themselves with. The process takes into account all the factors that relate to the wellbeing of the client, including social, cultural, physical and psychological. viii. Drawing every available support and resources from the community. ix. Dynamic. Recording and monitoring the progress of goals, objectives and strategies to ensure that they continue appropriately. Goals and outcomes are regularly revised to allow responsiveness to the client’s changing circumstances. x. Logical approach. Achievement of continued support mainly through appropriate referral, coordinating transition services and follow-up of outcomes, which is a reasonable structured approach. This paper critically analyses the major issues and dilemmas, including ethical issues, involved in the implementation of casework and case management practice through comparing and contrasting the effectiveness of these methods in contemporary service delivery to clients. The main aspects of comparison include; delivery of human and community services to solve complex social issues, building of good relations to obtain efficient and effective services and client participation in the process of identifying needs, implementation and monitoring, and outcome evaluation. The point of contrast is the nature of approach to a social issue by these two methods. Comparing and Contrasting the Effectiveness of Each Method in the Context of Contemporary Service Delivery Casework and case management are very closely related in that both have a human services or community services approaches that work with complex social issues. The difference that exists between these two is very blurred (Case Management Society of Australia, 2004). Case management offers a managed approach when it comes to linking service provision with the client’s needs; operating in a coordinated system to achieve the best outcomes. Casework on the other hand is specifically a problem solving approach that uses specific strategies to offer services that meet the client’s needs. It is goal oriented and client centred, directly linked to meeting an individual’s needs (Barrett, Todahl, & Christensen, 2011). Casework and case management are support systems for individuals, families, groups and communities. Both casework and case management aim to identify, support and build a person’s strengths and capabilities through actively involving them in identification of needs, planning, implementation and support processes, and monitoring of outcomes to ensure better service delivery. The underlying premise of case management is that support systems, payer sources, health care delivery institutions and even clients themselves will benefit if they achieve their optimum wellness, functional capability and self-management. Through case management, client wellness and autonomy is facilitated through advocacy, assessment of needs, planning, education, resource management, communication and service delivery (Case Management Society of Australia, 2004). Based on the client’s needs and values, and with good collaborative efforts with all service providers, case management links the clients with the most appropriate service providers and available resources in the entire process of continuum health care and human services. The case manager ensures that the care provider offers safe, timely, client centred, and effective, efficient and equitable services. With this approach, the case manager, the client and the service provider achieve the desirable and optimum value outcomes (Beresford, Croft, & Adshead, 2007). Direct communication among the client, the case manager, the primary care provider, the payer, and other professionals facilitate the best optimization of case management services. The case manager enhances these services through guarding the client’s privacy and confidentiality, health and safety by advocating and adhering to legal, ethical, certification, accreditation, and regulatory guidelines or standards. Similarly, casework is concerned with adjusting and building the capacity of a person towards a better and satisfying human relations. It offers activities and services that aim towards identifying and helping people to resolve their problems in their relationships. Through casework, social breakdowns are prevented, client’s strength is conserved and social functioning is restored (Case Management Working Group). It works to provide a happy experience and providing growth and development opportunities to the client through compensation of psychological damage, increasing capacity for client’s self-direction and their social contribution. A case worker strengthens and maximizes the potential in an individual, group or community. The two approaches work to provide human services to individuals and the community to assist in finding solutions to social problems. Both approaches are interactive with a focus to develop, support, care and assist individuals and communities to help themselves. This ensures that the client receives the best available options to meet their needs, and hence, more effective and competitive services are delivered. Another similarity between casework and case management is the emphasis on building relationships and empowering people, families and communities (Chamberlain & MacKenzie, 1992). Emphasis on development of a better relationship for a favorable operation environment Casework and case management work in cooperation and active involvement of the clients through building of good relationships among the client, service providers, the payer and other partners involved. The process of case management is dynamic and socially interactive, with an emphasis to develop relationships with clients to facilitate change, joint planning and building of partnerships with other agencies that are involved in the wellbeing of clients. Building a better relationship also ensures better analysis of the situation, decision making and improved record keeping for efficient fulfillment of the needs identified by providing effective services (Hardcastle, 2011). Relationship building through development of understanding of one’s experiences drives the process of assessment of needs, case planning, implementation and working alongside individuals, families and communities to create change. For a good relationship, there is need for trust, mutual respect, communication as well as cooperation and seeking the understanding of the context within which a community, a family or an individual operates (Vourlekis & Greene, 2004). In advanced casework practice, building a relationship helps to empower people to meet their day-to-day needs, protect their entitlements and rights, improve and maintain their social functioning. A successful partnership based on good relations benefits the client through sensitive approach, clarity of purpose, active participation with the aim of offering committed and collaborative efforts to solve problems in both case management and casework. This will improve the quality of services delivered and increase focus on meeting the client’s needs. The third similarity between these two approaches is that both focus on a strength based practice that help to build the client’s confidence, self-determination, self-reliance, self-efficacy and self-responsibility. Active participation to empower the clients Case management and casework involve active participation by the clients. The extent to which they participate varies with age, wishes and ability. Agencies and organizations with case management and casework responsibilities facilitate maximum participation of clients for successful planning as well as a consensus decision making. Participation provides an opportunity to identify risks, needs and strengths of the client, and in the process, their self-confidence, self-determination and self-efficacy can be strengthened (Zastrow, 2009). Active participation of clients is very crucial in the case work and case management processes. It improves the efficiency and effectiveness of the services provided by case management and casework agencies, with the overall positive impact on the outcomes. Despite these close similarities, there is a difference between these two approaches that may ultimately affect the quality and effectiveness of services delivered. Case management is a managed approach that works like a coordinating system, while on the other hand, casework operates with a problem-solving approach Case management works like a coordinating system to offer a managed approach to link appropriate services with the client’s needs in order to achieve the desired outcomes. The principle of partnership that brings together both governmental and non-governmental service providers, and link them to persons, families or communities that need these services, always provides a guide to good case management practice. Case management coordinates with organizations, facilities and agencies to link their clients to the best help. The case manager, the client and the partners work collaboratively in review of plans and coordination of delivery of services to the vulnerable and their carers (Zastrow, 2009). On the other hand, casework practice tends to operate with a problem-solving approach and use of pre-defined strategies to deliver services to the client. After a problem is identified, strategies are come up with to address the social, religious, physical, emotional, cultural, educational or whichever nature of problem it is. This is done by implementation of casework principles, values and techniques. Simply put, case management is more of a plan for provision of support services to clients. The actual implementation of these plans is the role of casework (Australian Association of Social Workers (, 2003). This makes casework more effective when it comes to service delivery because it has a direct impact on the client; as opposed to case management that only links a client to service providers who offer the desired needs. Conclusion The objective of case management and casework is to help individuals, families, groups and communities seeking assistance in the society to meet their needs and find solutions to their problems. A case management agency is responsible for intervening between the client, the system and the service providers to determine the client’s most suitable needs that fit their situation. Building of a strong relationship and partnerships helps in clarity of goals and objectives, and maximization of well-being. Casework is mainly concerned with implementation of case plans, assessment of risks and safety, coordination of support services and monitoring of outcomes. Both casework and case management have effective strategies that ensure that clients receive the best available care services and help. Both casework and case management are crucial in our day-to-day society when they work together to help vulnerable situations to ensure that clients get the best results that can be achieved when services are optimized. References Read More