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email feedback to bghay@aldenleadership.com Note: In the last ILF, we agreed that "Protection" should be more prominent here. Big P - Prevention at a community level - before an event of abuse/ neglect. Little p - prevention of a reoccurrence in a specific family. Section 7: The
Model There are 2 separate but highly interdependent aspects of
the caseload analysis model that must be understood if any real discussion of
the model is to occur:
Throughout
this section of the report, we will address each element – sometimes
separately in the interest of clarity, but often, you will see them interwoven
– reflective of their interdependency. Case Load Analysis - Practice
At the highest level, Case Load Analysis is the means and methodology that an agency can use for implementing and integrating strength based family centered practice. The easiest way to enter this discussion is to offer a highly simplified overview of the flow of a case through an agency – from referral to permanency for the child. Steps 1 – 3 deal with the referral though family assessment and disposition. Step 4 assumes that the family assessment revealed that the family requires additional services.
Reading
this flowchart from left to right yields the following: A
call comes into the agency where an initial set of data is collected to allow
for a decision to be made. Some calls are screened out – judged to not warrant
any further action – while others pass into a second decision making process.
Based on the data collected, decisions are made as to whether a referral should
be accepted or not. For those that are accepted, additional decisions are made
about priorities, and the referrals are assigned to an assessment function. In
step 3, an assessment is done utilizing the first 3 components of Case Load
Analysis – Risk Assessment, Genogram, and Ecomap. The significance of this
lies in 2 key points:
The family assessment
enables a decision to be made as to whether a family should receive additional
services, or whether more drastic actions are required. When a decision is made
to provide additional services to a family, the process moves to what we call
the Tri-Circle model – which consists of 3 interdependent circles – each
with 3 interdependent elements. The circles illustrate the cyclical,
interdependency of the elements, and the fact that these elements are in play
throughout the life of the case.
Further,
each circle represents a particular value set within the case load analysis
approach, but far from being strictly a theoretical model, it also represents
the specific methods and tools used to bring the philosophy to life at a
practical level – and it allows for very specific definition of each elements
– useful for either describing the model or teaching it to social workers. We
will explore the Tri-circle model in moiré detail shortly, but before we do,
let us finish with the flow chart we started. The 4 steps of the process we have described so far are all focused on one specific point – the permanency decision. The final half of the process illustrates this decision, and 3 specific tracks that can be chosen in any combination. The first track to consider, wherever it is deemed to be the best for the child, directs actions designed to enable the child to stay with the nuclear family. The second track illustrates a choice to place a child within the extended family, and also illustrates 2 flavors of this choice – one where the parents agree with this choice, and one where they don not. The 3rd track illustrates the choice to place the child with an alternative family, and once again illustrates to flavors as described above. Based
on the work accomplished in the first part of the process, the permanency
decision is made, either selecting a single track, or wherever it is deemed
appropriate, selecting 2 or even all 3 tracks to be developed concurrently. This
will be explained in more detail later. The
final element of the process illustrates a risk assessment being conducted on
the family with whom the child is placed in order to establish a baseline for
comparison should the child return to the agency at a future date. The
Specific Elements Defined – The Pitchfork Model So far, we have looked at the elements of Case load Analysis
from a overview perspective – as part of an overall process designed to
protect children while ensuring they are in a permanent home as soon as
possible. One of the most powerful elements of the developmental work done on this model though is the ability to isolate each element, define it, teach, it, practice it, and implement it as an integral part of an overall process. The following model – we call it the Pitchfork – helps move our discussion to a more concrete level. While we know that the process is not linear, and that you can not isolate pieces of it out of context from the whole, reducing it to this more linear model makes it easier to help build understanding of each component so that they can be seen more clearly in the context of the nonlinear way in which they are utilized
You will notice that in addition to the 9 Practice
elements we have introduced so far (illustrates on the 3 prongs of the
pitchfork) there are 4 additional elements (the handle elements) that bring in
the Agency Resource Management level of the model we discussed in the opening of
this section. It is important to keep in mind that the caseload analysis
approach unequivocally requires that an organization level context be
established in support of the implementation of the practice elements. These
handle elements represent agency values that provide the platform, the context
and organizational environment where the practice elements can be nurtured and
can grow. We would go so far as to say that the practice elements taken by
themselves – out of context with these other four handle elements – cannot
be successfully developed or implemented in an agency. The
following pages offer specific definitions for each element. CASE
LOAD ANALYSIS “PITCHFORK” DEFINITIONS I. Family Assessment
The continuous, systematic gathering and interpretation of a family’s
strengths and concerns, which drives all decision-making. A.
Genogram
Visual, mutigenerational
representation of familial relationships and patterns of behavior. B.
Ecomap
Visual representation of a
family’s connection to their environment and the constructive and destructive
influences within that environment. C.
Risk Assessment
Structured, systematic methodology for
assessing current level of risk and predicting the likelihood of future risk of
child maltreatment. II. Duration and Service Planning
Building on the
information gained in family assessment, developing strategies and planning for
the timely and effective execution of those strategies. A.
Classification of family needs
Standardized
model for identifying and labeling family conditions that contribute to
underlying risks to children. B.
Level of Service
An
approach for determining the frequency, intensity, and duration of services
necessary to address the family conditions identified above. C.
Workload Management
A process for balancing hours of work (demand) with hours of capacity. III. Strategies
for Permanence
Supportive tools used in the pursuit
of achieving permanence A.
Family Group Decision Making
A
collaborative and empowering approach where families and their support systems
meet within a formalized structure for the purpose of decision-making. B.
Concurrent Planning
Simultaneously working alternative permanence plans
C.
Kinship
An emphasis on the utilization of a child’s
emotional or biological relationships in pursuit of permanence IV. Managing Agency
Resources A.
Utilization of and redirection of
and to Community Resources
Partnering to maximize collaboration and linkages between an agency and
the community with an emphasis on engaging the community in helping in the
protection of children.
Community includes entities like court, board, family first council,
MRDD, Mental Health, schools, kinship, foster parents, neighborhoods, family to
family . . B.
Organization Development
Developing and integrating a structure that effectively supports the
mission, the agency and the staff.
This includes emphasis on things like common vision, mission, shared
values, skill building, leadership development, continuous improvement, building
ownership so that people take responsibility, quality assurance, organizing
people around the work, allocating people in the right configurations given the
nature of the work, getting people meaningfully involved in the continuing
development of the organization and its core business. C.
Fiscal Management
Working to secure, maintain and maximize the funds available and to use
them to best advantage
This includes things like getting funding, reallocating funding, changes
in placement $, pooling funding. Richland will distribute their definition for
review at the next ILF. D.
Data Driven Management/Decision Making
Integrating a fundamentally sound, systematic process for collecting,
interpreting and utilizing relevant data to drive decision-making at every
level. Bringing
it all Together Now
that we have introduce the elements – both within the context of the process
of which they are part, and in isolation, we can now show the final model which
illustrates the elements in context with the agency’s value structure and
leadership framework. email feedback to bghay@aldenleadership.com |
