Interagency Case Management
Identifying Potential
Partners
For any case management plan to be successful,
a provider must take a hard, objective look at
community resources. What form do they take?
What are the barriers to access? Who makes the
decisions about how they are used, how are
these decisions made, and how can they be
obtained? If housing is a major client concern,
for example, a community assessment should
ascertain if housing assistance is available and
how case management efforts might help clients
attain it. Similarly, a client’s legal status can
affect both the number and kinds of services
needed (e.g., client involvement in the criminal
justice system or with child protective services
agencies). Such legal pressures, in turn,
determine the range and type of agencies with
which a case management program must
interact and the conditions for these
relationships. Thus, depending on the legal
needs of its clients, a case management program
may need to identify and forge relationships
with such service providers as battered women’s
shelters, public assistance programs, legal aid,
churches, 12-Step groups, and other relevant
organizations.
Not all needed services are available, of
course, and at times the successful case manager
must create them. In other cases, needed
resources may exist but prove inaccessible or
unacceptable to clients. Ideally, case
management agencies or programs want to
provide or facilitate the full range of services
required by their clients. From a feasibility
standpoint, however, most providers must
confront painful realities during the assessment
process and be prepared to scale back
expectations.
Fortunately, most communities already have
tools to assist case management programs in
identifying resources, possible provider
linkages, and potential gaps in services. Public
Health Departments, United Way, and county
governments frequently produce directories of
social, welfare, health, housing, vocational, and
other services offered in the community. These
often include detailed information about hours,
location, eligibility, service mix, and costs; some
directories are computerized and regularly
updated. Although the costs associated with
purchasing these automated directories can be
steep (and should be considered when planning
the program budget), their timeliness and
convenience may justify the investment. In
many areas, the Yellow Pages serve as an
excellent resource for obtaining initial contact
information on a variety of health and social
services.
Another solid source of information is
geomapping, an automated package that assists in
resource identification. Philadelphia has
developed software that not only provides basic
program information but also indicates whether
a particular program has any openings.
Traditional paper maps or maps equipped with
overlays can fulfill the same function.
While directories and other service rosters
provide a useful starting point in identifying
potential resources and service providers,
additional work is required to determine which
listings will prove fruitful. There are often
delays in publishing and updating such
directories, so that they may be out of date even
before dissemination. It is critical that they be
updated on a consistent, timely basis.
Directories may not list all agencies or
programs, and more than one directory may be
necessary because an agency’s focus can shift.
Ouellet and colleagues report some
limitations in using directories, encountered
when they developed a case management
program for HIV-infected injection drug users
(Ouellet et al., 1995). Initially, during startup,
staff attempted to link clients to services solely
using a service directory, followed by contact
with organizations expressing willingness to
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