The FAMCare Blog

Artificial intelligence has suddenly captured the imagination of the country's academic, business, government, and social communities. Everyone is startled and concerned that computers can now do the thinking for us and render the intelligence that once set humans above the entire natural world - superfluous.

This, of course, is a bit of an overstatement. Artificial intelligence (AI) is, in fact, the greatest leap forward in human ingenuity since the invention of the internet, but it is still the result of human ingenuity, not the replacement. Let's take a closer look at artificial intelligence.

In the world of social services, transparency is more than just a buzzword. It's a fundamental principle that fosters trust, accountability, and efficiency. 

The ability to share information openly with clients, stakeholders, and the public is crucial for building strong relationships and making sure that resources are used effectively. Social services case management software has emerged as a powerful change catalyst, revolutionizing how social services agencies achieve transparency. 

In this blog, we will explore the ways in which case management software is driving transparency in social services. So, continue to read to find out why you need a case management software solution to make your agency transparent and eventually more successful. 

The demand for enhanced productivity inside teams has emerged as one of the top goals for organizations. Case managers in the human services industry are motivated to increase their caseload capacity, take on more clients, and become more involved in their local communities.

However, it's reasonable to say that given the evolving nature of the human services industry and the unique problems faced by social services, simplifying your caseload may seem like a laborious task. We hope that this article will help you streamline your caseload and save you time and energy. This will put a smile on your face and the faces of your teammates!

While doing some spring cleaning on the FAMCare Blog, I stumbled across this brief but excellent blog article from our very own Danielle Ritacco from March 2017.

Dr. Anna Scheyett, PhD, is the speaker, and this is her TED Talk about social workers. Dr. Scheyett's research, which she conducts as a professor at The University of Georgia, has focused on the needs of vulnerable populations. In this Ted Talk, she gives a succinct 7-minute summary of why social workers are superhumans. It's reassuring to know that some people recognized social workers as superheroes even before the pandemic that rocked social services to its core.

So Happy Social Worker Month.  Please enjoy this reposted TED Talk! 

Known as the “Cures Rule,” this national policy requires healthcare providers to give patients access to all of the health information in their electronic medical records “without delay” and without charge. It mandates that patients have rapid, free, and full access upon request to test results, medication lists, referral information, and clinical notes, all in electronic formats. Some refer to the Cures Act Final Rule as the “Open Notes Rule.” This “Final” Rule supports seamless and secure access, exchange, and use of electronic health information. The rule is designed to give patients and their healthcare providers secure access to health information.

In the 1970s a management concept called the matrix structure began to take hold in American industry.

Burnout

Over the course of the 20th century, as American society became ever more complex, industrialized, urbanized, and a safe haven for the world's most vulnerable, our society gradually became more socially conscious and the case worker's burden more laden. The paperwork required for patient safety, privacy, accountability, and continuity has grown algebraically alongside documentation to secure funding. More vulnerable clients with more complex problems requiring more complex documentation have begun to overwhelm the modern caseworker and "burnout" is becoming epidemic. Social service professionals are particularly susceptible because of the high levels of empathy required by their jobs. Striving to ease the suffering of clients who are often in crisis leads to emotional and physical depletion, and case worker burnout is the primary cause of the high turnover rate in social services.

Struggling with staying on top of all of your cases?  Worried that someone may fall through the cracks?  Not sure how you can possibly help all of your clients achieve their best outcome?

As a former caseworker for DFCS, I've been there.  I also know the transformation I had to go through to take control of my workday and case load.

Originally, social services were meant to serve as emergency rooms for society's most vulnerable. They took in orphans and the homeless and fed the hungry. As the twentieth century wore on, social work expanded services to all segments of the less fortunate population, and nonprofits as well as government social agencies began to define their missions by identifying the quality-of-life outcomes their clients achieved. For example, social workers engaged in drug and alcohol addiction began to measure success, not by how many addicts they admitted to their clinics, but rather by how many addicts had remained clean and sober, and for how long, after being discharged from the clinics.