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Community aged care case managers transitioning to consumer directed care: more than procedural change required
- Authors:
- LARAGY Carmel, ALLEN Jacqueline
- Journal article citation:
- Australian Social Work, 68(2), 2015, pp.212-227.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
Consumer directed care (CDC) is increasing in community aged care. However, limited information is available to successfully transition social workers and other case managers to their new role. This paper reports on a case study of six senior case managers who supervised staff in three Australian community-aged care agencies as they transitioned from agency directed care to consumer directed care. A change management framework was used to analyse the qualitative data collected in 12 semi-structured interviews. A key finding is that changes in values, attitudes, and organisational culture are needed before staff can fully implement CDC principles of service user self-determination, empowerment, and choice. Process changes needed to assist staff transition to CDC are: using a change management strategy that maximises certainty; monitoring and responding to feelings of anxiety through ongoing consultations; and providing ongoing education and support in group sessions. (Publisher abstract)
Social workers in community care practice: ideologies and interactions with older people
- Author:
- SULLIVAN Mary Pat
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, 39(7), October 2009, pp.1306-1352.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
This paper explores community care practice with older people, emphasizing the ideological underpinnings in practice and their influence on practice interactions. Social work practitioners working on older people's teams in two contrasting communities in England were interviewed to discuss their assessment and care management interactions with older people. Using grounded theory and Goffman's theoretical constructs within frame analysis, a conceptual model for practice emerged, reinforcing that practitioners' understandings of social events, anchored in government and professional discourse and individual perceptions about older people, enabled them to organize and influence the interaction to lead to a professionally determined outcome. The routine work of assessment and care management became very powerful in absence of strategic intention by the practitioner. A move to more strategic behaviour occurred when practice dilemmas required practitioners to intervene, informed by their professionally based values juxtaposed against those supported within official discourse. The findings provide an insight into how social work practitioners manage to deliver community care in a complex environment. The outcomes also reinforce the need for practitioners to develop an understanding of how they construct their social realities, as this may impact on the experience of community care for older people.
Combining the role of social worker with that of care organiser
- Author:
- THOMPSON Gretta
- Journal article citation:
- Irish Social Worker, 20(1/2), Summer 2002, pp.9-10.
- Publisher:
- Irish Association of Social Workers
Describes the service offered by the Home First project based in Beaumont Hospital, Dublin and discusses balancing the role of the care organiser and social worker in responding to the needs of older people.
New programme of research on community care
- Author:
- PAHL Jan
- Publisher:
- National Institute for Social Work. Research Unit
- Publication year:
- 1993
- Pagination:
- 27p.
- Place of publication:
- London
Outlines a new programme of research on community care which take place in the NISW Research Unit. The two projects involved are: assessment and care management for confused elderly people; and the changing roles and functions of social work practitioners.
Involvement of Japanese care managers and social workers in advance care planning
- Authors:
- HIRAKAWA Yoshihisa, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Social Work in End-of-Life and Palliative Care, 14(4), 2018, pp.315-321.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia
Successful advance care planning relies heavily on effective communication between the elderly and their families, care managers, and social workers. However, care managers and social workers are often not adequately prepared to conduct such discussion. The aim of the present study was to identify the specific challenges facing Japanese care managers and social workers when involvement in advance care planning. Two focus group discussions were held between August and November 2017, involving eleven care managers and three social workers employed at two long-term care facilities actively pursuing advance care planning initiatives. Four main themes were identified, through content analysis, as barriers and facilitators: client readiness, communication, variation-rich client individuality, and difficult-to-explain end-of-life options. This study revealed the importance of building rapport with the residents and their families in order to assess their readiness to discuss care options and preferences. Obstacles included lack of medical knowledge of care managers and social workers. Study findings suggested that a multi-disciplinary team, facilitated by care managers and social workers, was fundamental to achieving the goals of advance care planning. (Publisher abstract)
Care managers' experiences of cross-cultural needs assessment meetings: the case of late-in-life immigrants
- Authors:
- FORSSELL Emilia, TORRES Sandra, OLAISON Anna
- Journal article citation:
- Ageing and Society, 35(3), 2015, pp.576-601.
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
Research on care managers' experiences of the needs assessment process is scarce even though the literature on needs assessment practice is relatively extensive. This study examines the ways in which care managers experience the challenges that are presumably posed by increased ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious diversity among prospective elder care recipients. It is based on a project that aims to shed light on care managers' experiences of the needs assessment process in general and cross-cultural needs assessment meetings in particular. The data are constituted of focus group interviews with care managers in Sweden (N=60). This article focuses on care managers' experiences of needs assessment with older people who have immigrated late-in-life, who come from cultures considered different from the Swedish one and who have not mastered the Swedish language. This was the group of older people that the care managers mostly thought of when asked to describe their experiences of cross-cultural needs assessment meetings. The interviewed care managers discussed the challenges that these meetings present, which were related to communication due to language barriers, different demands and expectations, insecurity regarding what is customary in such meetings, as well as perceived passivity among late-in-life immigrants. The article discusses the contributions of the findings to research on care management practices in general, as well as to needs assessment practice in particular. (Edited publisher abstract)
Care management in practice: on the use of talk and text in gerontological social work
- Authors:
- CEDERSUND Elisabet, OLAISON Anna
- Journal article citation:
- International Journal of Social Welfare, 19(3), July 2010, pp.339-347.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
This article focuses on the assessment processes older people undergo to gain access to home care, an assessment which often falls within the scope of gerontological social work. The process involves meetings between care managers, acting as social workers, and older people in their homes to reach decisions about their home care. The article describes a study of these meetings between care manager and citizens in one type of welfare organisation – the municipal elder care system in Sweden. The article highlights how older people’s claims are dealt with in the processing of home care applications. Twenty encounters between social workers and older people were studied using discourse analysis. The findings showed that discursive practices are part of the routine when the applications are processed, and that the application handling follows an agenda-bound pattern that is visible in the encounters. The authors suggest that within these standardised procedures, verbal discourse is embedded in routines that also include the use of texts, but, however, within this institutional order there is also an important element of negotiation between the parties. In conclusion, the authors claim that the encounters include a negotiated order that does not exist on its own, but is achieved through the on-going interaction.
The social work role with older people
- Authors:
- LYMBERY Mark, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Practice: Social Work in Action, 19(2), June 2007, pp.97-113.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
This paper focuses on the role of social workers with older people, drawing on a project carried out in a Midlands Social Services Department. It argues that this role has never been clearly defined, even though the advent of community care ensured an increase in the numbers of practitioners employed in this area of activity. It also suggests that the introduction of care management has tied social workers to the discipline of assessment and has not enabled them to carry out the more detailed and in-depth work that would be common with other service user groups. The authors suggest that the adoption of a grid defining the proper contribution of qualified social workers to practice with older people might both enable scarce resources to be used more productively while clarifying the specific aspects of work on which a qualified social worker should concentrate. They also reflect on the importance of considering the adoption of approaches to practice that go beyond the individualistic focus that has become the staple of social work with older people.
Transforming community care: a distorted vision?
- Authors:
- GORMAN Helen, POSTLE Karen
- Publisher:
- Venture Press
- Publication year:
- 2003
- Pagination:
- 103p.
- Place of publication:
- Birmingham
The authors use their research to show powerfully how a generation of social workers have been disillusioned by care management. They also use their own practice experience with older people to demonstrate the continuing possibilities for social work to empower service users and practitioners to develop care management in the future. The book reveals social workers are increasingly bogged down with bureaucracy, leaving them with less time to spend with elderly people. It also highlights funding difficulties, with local authorities unable to afford to spend cash on preventative work.
Transforming community care: a distorted vision?
- Authors:
- GORMAN Helen, POSTLE Karen
- Publisher:
- Venture Press
- Publication year:
- 2002
- Pagination:
- 103p.,bibliog.
The authors use their research to show powerfully how a generation of social workers have been disillusioned by care management. They also use their own practice experience with older people to demonstrate the continuing possibilities for social work to empower service users and practitioners to develop care management in the future. The book reveals social workers are increasingly bogged down with bureaucracy, leaving them with less time to spend with elderly people. It also highlights funding difficulties, with local authorities unable to afford to spend cash on preventative work.