Case Management – Community Services
Instructions and Marking Rubric
Description: The following assignment is aimed to focus your learning on developing an advanced knowledge of community treatment resources for a specific client profile in a definable community. It is designed to assist you with exploring, in detail, the potential options available in a community you wish to learn more about. As well, it should help you critically appraise and describe the benefits and limits of specific services. It also assesses your follow-through on Goal and Objective setting skills for a client.
Note: You are only permitted to directly contact the agency staff to ask a few specific questions about their services after you have learned extensively about them online. Therefore, first seek information from the agencies’ websites online, from brochures or via other online sources that discuss or present their services. If you know someone who works at the agency (e.g., a relative, or friend, etc.) you can ask them questions outside of their workday. Always cite personal contact with someone in APA formatting as a ‘personal communication’ (see APA guidelines).
The Report: The following bolded subtitles should be the actual subtitles in your report. Do not start a new page after each Section, do not leave blank lines. See other formatting requirements below.
Case Management – Community Services
Section 1: Geographic / Demographic area
Briefly note in a maximum of five (5) sentences the area of your focus. Mention the approximate population size and any useful socio-economic characteristics or general issues impacting the area. Do not go into detail about non-demographic features. Cite sources (e.g., Statscan, a social planning council, a municipal report). (2 mark) (1/4 – 1⁄2 page)
Section 2: Statement of the Goal and MHA Objective
Simply write your MHA Goal and a related MHA Objective that you will focus on. Name one of the agencies (not all of them from Section 3). (2 mark). (1/8 page).
Section 3: Services Description
Be sure to use professional language throughout. Describe two (or three for those working in pairs) different services (each from a different community agency/hospital) for the related objective of your client and describe all as detailed below. They should all be aimed at the same or very similar intervention as your Objective. Describe in detail the several distinct, currently existing, services (available in your selected geographic area) that will each address the same assessment or treatment or support need of your client. Note: If your geographic area/community is very small or has extremely limited services you must still include at minimum two (or three for pairs) assessments or treatment/service from different agencies/providers (note: often outside agencies will extend catchment areas to smaller communities). Do not include therapists in private practice or services that cost significant amounts of money because your client(s) likely cannot afford these fees.
Be sure to describe the agency aspects in detail that are pertinent to your client’s objective (If it is a hospital or multi-service agency, do not describe extraneous detail about the multitude of other unneeded services they offer). Take great care not to just repeat their marketing/advertising information that is meaningless and not factually supported. It will be especially important to note the exact name of the service or program and as much detail as is possible for you to gather, such as (and not in any order):
Case Management – Community Services
• eligibility criteria / exclusionary criteria,
• details of the provided service (e.g., if they provide assessment services, what is specifically included in their assessment process, how long does it take, are there standardized questionnaires, interviews or tests used);
• what are the specific treatments that may be proposed;
• what is the practice or service model / theoretical base employed;
• also name specifically where the funding for that specific service originates and if it is from the government, which department does it flow through before landing at the agency (e.g., a local area office of MCCSS or MOH, MLTC);
• how long has the service been in operation;
• waitlist information (e.g., what is involved, process, who can refer, usual wait time, the process for the agency to decide on referrals);
• number and credentials of staff usual for staff that provide the services;
• intensity/frequency of the service; what commitment is required of clients
• duration that services are available to clients, etc.
• If that agency has had research published on their service efficacy you should locate it and cite it if relevant to the specific service for your client.
(12 marks or 18 marks) (6-8 pages (1.5 – 2 pages x 2/3 services))
Case Management – Community Services
Notes: You must not include information about private practices and/or for-profit services since your client may not be able to afford them. If you do not find and/or convey enough detailed service information, or write less than 1.5 pages per service, your mark will be reduced and likely reflect that lack of adequate detail in Section 3. It will likely lead to a poor mark for Section 4 as well.
Section 4: Services Considerations and Recommendation
In this section, you make a final recommendation for which service would be most indicated for your client after describing the pros and cons. Do not include any new information in this section that was not in Section 3. Describe in detail a few relevant pros and cons of the treatment providers you have identified and described in Section 3. These should relate to the likelihood of the services being able to meet your client’s needs and psycho-social barriers (i.e., identified in the case study or likely for such clients) that may impact the uptake of the services by your client.
The section should end with you identifying which one service of the 2 or 3 would be the most recommended for your client at this time and your reasoning for this, versus the other services described by you. If you did not choose very similar agency services for those you included in Section 3 then you will have little to compare, and this section will be weak and achieve a poor mark. (4 marks) (1 1⁄2 – 2 pages)
Case Management – Community Services
Formatting Requirements: (5 marks)
All assignments are to be only in APA formatting unless otherwise specified by your professor. This is not an essay, but a report; therefore, there should not be an Introduction paragraph or Conclusion. Do not use any colours or report templates because they are not APA formatted. Use the Manuscript formatting that APA describes.
Very Important: At this level in your studies, you are familiar with proper citations and giving credit to the many authors whose information you find and use in your assignments. Plagiarism is a serious offence and a key factor that will result in failing this assignment. Be sure to cite properly and paraphrase – I cannot stress enough that you must cite every instance of information that is not general knowledge.
In Section 3 when writing about an agency you should cite your agency information sources repetitively, not just at the bottom of a paragraph or once within it. Paraphrase well. In general, I wouldn’t want to see more than 5 words in a row from a source that is not treated as a quotation (and or cited in text). Lack of sufficient citations or appropriate paraphrasing results in determinations of plagiarism.
Case Management – Community Services
You will be marked on the following APA formatting throughout. Here are some details to remind you in case you are used to using other formatting styles:
• Title Page: use a proper APA formatted page
• Length: 5.5 – 9 pages plus a separate Title and References page(s)
• Font: New Times Roman only (including in headers and footers), 12 pt font only
• Line and Page Spacing: Double-spaced lines on every page
• All Margins: 2.5 centimeters (not inches!)
• Alignment: Left only (Please do not you use block / left and right alignment)
• Format: Absolutely no coloured inks (remove all colours in hyperlinks and deactivate them);
no templates, no photos, no logos.
• Write in Prose: no bulleted-type lists allowed except in the Section 3 on Goals / Objectives.
• Quotes: You may use up to 4 short quotes (i.e., less than 39 words each).
• Page Numbers: Place in the bottom right in footer
• Personal Communications: Regarding citation of contact with an agency staff member you do not need to ask for their name or add their name in your report simply use the following format example: (Intake worker, personal communication, February 14, 2024). These are always cited in-text near the information you are noting that they gave you, never on the References page.
Case Management – Community Services
• References: The section is entitled References -nothing else. Only in-text cited works may be placed on your double-spaced References page(s), always use hanging indents, please.
Submitting: 2 steps- Turnitin AND Blackboard
• TurnItin: You must submit this assignment to Turnitin. See the instructions on this posted under the Assignment tab.
• Submission: On or before the due date, you must hand in an electronic copy via Blackboard ‘course email’ attachment.
General Tips suggested for completing this assignment
Note: There is a sample student report from a previous professor in a prior year that I have posted to the Assignments tab for you to review. That sample is of a similar but slightly different assignment (e.g., it had a longer section 1, section 2, more objectives required in section 3; and an extra agency presented). The professor added comments embedded in the Sample Report and serve as a reference for you to see the expectations.
A) Please note the following generally recommended tips or steps for completing this assignment and then proceed to the Section descriptions, formatting requirements and Rubric for more details. Select one (1) Case Summary from the six (6) Client Case Profiles (posted under the Assignments tab on the course’s Blackboard Learn site: Case Summaries) as the focus of your assignment.
Case Management – Community Services
Also, select a definable Ontario area of approximately 100,000 citizens or less, such as a region of the GTA (e.g., Rexdale area; southern Etobicoke; eastern Scarborough or another area for your focus. The town of Orangeville or Barrie as examples would be fine, but Etobicoke is too large – pick a subsection / of Etobicoke that has a name and is measured by some research group such as
a Social Planning Council or Statistics Canada. You do not need to receive approval from the professor about your preferred area/region before proceeding further. Decide if you will work with a partner or not; you are responsible for finding a partner.
B) Read your selected case summary and consider the key client issues that may likely impact the chosen client’s community participation and related treatments/service needs. Note one addiction and or mental health or other service goal (e.g., housing, parenting) that your client would likely agree to work on. Write one objective which should relate to assessment and/or treatment services/housing or other supports that could be delivered by a community service. You should name one real agency service and/or professional.
C) IF WORKING SOLO: Find two services offered by different agencies (the one you have included in the Objective above and one more that can provide almost the exact same service.
IF WORKING WITH A PARTNER: Find three services offered by different agencies (the one you have included in the Objective above and two more that can aim to help the client with almost the exact same service.
Case Management – Community Services
For instance, if your Objective is about the client engaging with a substance use assessment, you will find and focus on three different substance use assessment services in Section 3. Describe all service features using professional language from the Glossary or elsewhere. Take the one agency noted in your objective above, and locate, gather information, and describe in detail AND then, one or two other real community resources that would help further assess or treat the client’s mental health/addictions issues (cite all sources frequently).
To include the community resources in this report, you must confirm with them via website that; eligibility would be likely for your client; and cite a source (e.g., a website or personal communication is fine). In some cases, the agency resource may be located geographically outside of your community area, but it must have a catchment area that includes clients from your area. You may need to confirm this by contacting the service, as I will when marking your report if I am unsure. Note: You cannot include information in Section 3 about private practices or for-
profit services since your client may not be able to afford them. If you do not find and convey enough service information or write less than 1.5 pages per service your mark will be reduced and likely reflect that lack of adequate detail in Section 3. It will likely lead to a poor mark for Section 4 as well. Use APA referencing style.