Social Work Care Case Study Essay

social workers find themselves in the position of being primary care coordinators. This is especially true in situations like the Parker family's, in which there are multiple interrelated issues affecting the family and those issues require input from a wide variety of diverse healthcare workers. The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) stresses the importance of developing and maintaining cross-disciplinary partnerships and partnerships across different organizations that can "enhance access to and continuity of care for social work clientele," (p. 33). Therefore, the most important thing to address whether in public policy or administrative procedure is to have protocols and standards in place for coordinating care across various disciplines and agencies.

The Parker family is dealing with several interrelated issues that include mental health issues but also gerontological ones. More effective coordination of care would help increase and improve access to mental health services for Stephanie while also addressing Sara's unmet needs and also Stephanie's unmet needs as a caregiver. The living arrangement with Stephanie and Sara is currently not working out, which is why the social worker needs to help the entire family including Jane, the sister who lives apart, to understand their options and what resources might be available to them. Social work expertise and input are critical for implementing effective services, not just in terms of recommending senior care facilities for Sara but also helping Stephanie.

Increasingly, public policy is starting to catch up to empirical evidence supporting the importance of care continuity and effective social work coordination. As Fink-Samnick (2011) point out, "care coordination continues to attract national attention as an important component of service delivery to achieve quality, efficiency, and efficacy goals," (p. 1). One of the reasons why social workers are on the front lines of care coordination is that coordination of services is practically built into the definition of the profession, which spans multiple disciplinary areas and modes of application. Mental health services are frequently part of the overall care package, as well as geriatric care coordination. The role of the social worker is also preventative as well as ameliorative. In the Parker case, the needs of both prevention and intervention are noted and will be taken into account when addressing not just policy gaps but also implementation of services.

Access is a key issue when addressing the needs of the Parker family. It is not enough to have services be available in…