Case Management Empowerment

Case management (CM), particularly in mental health, can be very challenging and stressful having the responsibility of managing multiple cases and many other tasks simultaneously.

Case managers can have very high caseloads that include having to deal with an array of clients’ and their different needs, who are often difficult and poverty stricken. Moreover, case managers can become the touchstone person for all their cases and everyone else including outside agencies; everyone can unrealistically expect you to be totally responsible for everything. 

Case managers have to deal with constant deadlines, documentation, referrals, follow-ups, crisis, and respond to a barrage of phone calls and emails. Among the most common stress factors for case managers are redundant paperwork, competing deadlines, staffing shortages, and lack of resources that can lead to stress, burnout, errors, termination, or resignation.

As a retired case manager, I found from my perspective that an ongoing underlying issue that makes case managers jobs constantly difficult and stressful is a lack of effective training from new hire and throughout.

Indeed, it's not sufficient to hire someone as a case manager, provide a week of orientation, hand them a manual, and assign them cases. New case managers need effective mentoring so they understand the job and everything involved.

The person training and mentoring a case manager should be someone who knows the job well, has proven competencies, and performs effectively. The new case manager will only be as good as what he or she is taught.

If the person doing the mentor training doesn't have proficient skills and competency to be a good case manager, the new hires won't know how to do the job well and will continue the same minimal practices as the trainer. The problem of many case manager mentors is they often don’t have a lot of experience due to high turnover rates including the loss of competent experienced case managers.

I wrote my eBook ‘Case Management Empowerment’ because too often on-the-job training and mentoring isn't sufficient for case managers. New social work case managers and those with experience can benefit from this e-book as an augmentation to learn the main components of the job to be empowered, competent, and effective; how to manage stress and the importance of self-care; they get a sense of what being a case manager is really like – what they need to know and expect.