In this work each person has a supportive role in a persons life. No one person can be everything to everyone. And case managers are also humans with lives.
Here are some ground rules which help you stand out, be spoken about positively and give your services the best chance of being amazing.
- Prepare for meetings.
- Clarity – Knowing you can have what you need and want and how to get it.
- I state what I need.
- I state what I won’t talk about or do.
- I sign paperwork promptly after it being explained.
- I am proactive and engaged in meeting.
- I keep my case managers schedule in mind.
- Openness –
- Absorb what is said.
- Answer questions.
- If you don’t understand say something right away.
- If people who love and care about you give advice. Give space to decide later or accept the advice in the moment and see if there is a way to find better advice later.
- Clarity – Knowing you can have what you need and want and how to get it.
- Most case managers care about a few things.
- Having stable work conditions. (physical/emotional)
- Fulfilling responsibilities so they can go home. (mental/social)
- Feeling of accomplishment from helping others and peer supports. (social/spiritual)
- Being able to access the resources, experience and connections in this work to secure better opportunities later. (5 pillars)
The way a case manager will love you is as follows:
- Do what you say when you say it.
- Make sure paperwork is in on time, clean and relatively easy to read.
- Keep social or emotional conversations relatively short and forward focused.
- Say positive things to them when they do good work.
- If they are acting not so nice, tell them in soft words how and offer support.
- Be open to making changes to ensure the case manager meets most job securing or family focused outcomes.
- Remembering there is a financial incentive and that this means some discomfort will happen and this person cannot leave without risking those 5 pillars fail. So give them a break if they are a little mean until you notice it being a pattern.
- Then make then uncomfortable by talking about it.
- Then talk to a supervisor if not resolved.
- Then reach out to higher and higher entities until you find out why this person can do that things. If it is a rule. Please advocate to remove that rule.
- If you cannot figure out why that person did that. Maybe remember not all people were raised right and some people may be “meaner” than other people and they make up for it in other ways. So you can be a good person and still have a bad day.
Forgive and move forward.