Standards for Case Manager

The following 10 standards are generally organized into three areas: the client, the system, and the social work case manager. Beginning with the necessary qualifications of the social work case manager (standard 1), standards 2 through 5 pertain to client issues: primacy of the client’s interests, self-determination, confidentiality, and client intervention. Standards 6 through 8 pertain to systems issues: system intervention, fiscal accountability and quality assurance, and program evaluation. Standards 9 and 10 return to the initial focus of the social work case manager with a discussion of adequate staffing and intraprofessional relationships.

 

Standard 1. The social work case manager shall have a baccalaureate or graduate degree from a social work program accredited by the Council on Social Work Education and shall possess the knowledge, skills, and experience necessary to competently perform case management activities.

 

Interpretation

The practice of social work case management is highly complex and calls for a variety of roles and skills, such as advocate, broker, diagnostician, planner, community organizer, evaluator, consultant, and therapist. The qualifications of staff should be appropriately matched to the skills required to perform case management duties. Where required by state law, the social work case manager should be licensed or certified to practice.

System-Level Intervention

Today we are going to discuss on System Level Intervention. An organization’s structure, policies, and budget as well as the community network of services should adequately provide for the implementation of client-centered case management. The social work case manager is responsible for understanding how the agency and environmental systems can both positively and negatively affect clients and to intervene at the system level to optimize these conditions. To this end, the social work case manager engages in a range of tasks that support and enhance the system in which case management exists. For example, the social work case manager

• analyzes the strengths and limitations of environmental systems
• delineates desired outcomes
• selects strategies to improve systems
• assesses the effectiveness of strategies
• continues to revise, as indicated, desired outcomes and strategies.

Specific activities include, but are not limited to, resource development, financial accountability, social action, agency policy formation, data collection, information management, program evaluation, and quality assurance. Like client intervention, system intervention occurs along a continuum and comprises an ongoing, uninterrupted cycle of tasks that are performed by the social work case manager.

Ref: social work

Client-Level Intervention

Once the social work case manager has identified and engaged clients as a result of outreach or referral activities, he or she conducts a face-to-face comprehensive assessment with each client of that client’s strengths and limitations and of the social, financial, and institutional resources available to the client. The social work case manager focuses particularly on how these resources relate to the principal concerns identified during the assessment. On the basis of this assessment, the social worker develops an individualized service plan with the client that identifies priorities, desired outcomes, and the strategies and resources to be used in attaining the outcomes. The responsibilities of the social worker, the client, and others should be clarified throughout development of the plan. The direct contact between social worker and client is essential to effectively accomplish the assessment and service plan development.

Additional social work case management tasks related to client intervention include implementing the service plan aimed at mobilizing the formal and informal resources and the services needed to maximize the client’s physical, social, and emotional well-being, and coordinating and monitoring service delivery. The social work case manager also advocates on behalf of the plan for needed client resources and services; periodically reassesses client status, the effectiveness of interventions, and the attainment of outcomes with revision of the service plan as indicated; and terminates the case.

Goals

The primary goal of case management is to optimize client functioning by providing quality social services in the most efficient and effective manner to individuals with multiple complex needs. Like all methods of social work practice, case management rests on a foundation of professional training, values, knowledge, theory, and skills used in the social service of attaining goals that are established in conjunction with the client and the client’s family, when appropriate. Such goals include

• enhancing developmental, problem- solving, and coping capacities of clients
• creating and promoting the effective and humane operation of systems that provide resources and services to people
• linking people with systems that provide them with resources, services, and opportunities
• improving the scope and capacity of the delivery system
• Contributing to the development and improvement of social policy.

Tasks and Functions

Although the roles and responsibilities of individual social work case managers can vary considerably depending on program or system objectives, social work case managers perform a range of common tasks related to client- level intervention and system-level intervention.

 

Ref: social work