Models of Case Management: The Assessment Phase of Case Management

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Models of case management chapter 5, “The assessment phase of case management”
Introduction
Assessment is an ongoing and dynamic process through which gathering of information for various sources is done. Some of this information includes people, their situation of life, and informal as well as formal supports. Assessment in other terms refers to the process of identifying difficulties a certain person may be going through in areas such as community and personal relationships, the environment and health. The varying information collected is then considered in the information context and advice obtained from the disabled person for instance, their care givers and/or family and informal supports. Information may be collected from sources such as recordings or written reports, observations, and verbal reports. After collection, any information available should first be reviewed and then analyzed in order to determine its quality and currency, considering the source used in giving such an information. This piece of writing seeks to give my own perspective on the chapter “The assessment phase of case management”.
Case management is a very crucial thing and hence managers should be very keen on the sources they take as sources of information. Some of the sources contain information that might seem to be reliable but the fact is that the information is very misleading as compared to other sources giving information on the same. Such cases where people are misled by the sources they use to collect information have been happening from time to time. Relevant information is very useful in that it can be used in informing future discussions between an expert and a disabled person, care givers or family. In this way, such information might be used in order to help these disabled people in the achievement of their goals. Assessment is not a simple process as many people take it as the collection of information. This is phase of collaboration in which the person having a disability is involved in a direct way.
It is very important that people with disabilities require the attention of the other people by being listened to, and their current needs and circumstances well understood. Assessment is a process through which the wishes, goals, needs, resources, assets and strengths are assessed. In addition, it seeks to establish the available resources that are being used by the disabled as well as establishment of the circle giving them support. On top of this, assessment seeks to identify the possible difficulties a disabled person may be going through. Such difficulties comprise of difficulties in personal as well as community relationships, the environment they are living in and their status of health. Assessment varies depending on whether the person assessing knows the disabled during this process or not. In the case where assessor knows the disabled clearly, assessment will be directly since he/she already knows the problem the person is going through. In the case where the disabled person is new to the assessor, information will first be collected in order to know the disabled well before going a step further to help him/her.
Let’s for instance consider a case where a meeting is to be arranged. The person doing an assessment needs to take things such as the people required to be present, individual circumstances, the location, timing and other things which are important according to the assessor. Primary priority is first given to the person having a disability. In the process of carrying out an assessment, a person should ensure that he/she remains reliable and punctual hence avoiding the postponing of an event from one time to another. Since the assessment here is done in the context of a family, family rituals as well as customs need to be observed.
Despite the fact that most of the organizations have very good practices of case management assessment in place, some of them have not yet incorporated such systems. Some depend on the experience a person has in extracting information from people going through a trouble while other majorly rely on long intake forms. The ways in which these forms are handled describe the greater disparity in most organizations today. The more and effectively you handle the forms, the better the system of case management assessment will be. These poor management forms describe the reason as to why people are currently pulling out from giving support to people through such organizations. They are thus looking for new means through which they can give help to the less fortunate people in the society. A very good solution for helping ensure that good case assessment has been put in place comprises of the incorporation of the correct case management software. Such a system is very important as it will help a person work in real time with the data at hand. Another approach to improve the process of case management assessment is by using people are well experienced in collecting information on assessment. This will impact positively in that the loss incurred by organizations as a result of poor organization system will be solved.
Conclusion
The phase of assessment very important and hence should be given a lot of attention. This is because it entails helping people who are disadvantaged at one point or another. Companies should make sure that they have incorporated good systems of case assessment so as to better address the needs of people.