Direct Care Supervisor: Overworked and Underpaid - Avis employé Employé (anonyme) First Choice In-Home Care

Let me begin this response by expressing why First Choice exists: we exist to serve the underserved and vulnerable members of our community including; children and adults with developmental disabilities, vulnerable seniors, veterans and adults with mental health disorders. How we help our in-need community members is by finding them a caregiver who is then responsible for fulfilling their basic daily living needs and of which, 99.4% of our service recipients receive funding for their in-home care services through Medicaid. Furthermore, individuals qualifying for Medicaid assistance are commonly at or below the poverty line and are in most in need of quality care but least likely to obtain it. The root cause of the challenges in realizing our mission stems from the fact that in our society, there are more people who are in need of this type of care assistance than there are those who are willing to provide it. Caring for this population is necessary work, and it is work that truly matters. We endeavor to mitigate the inherent challenge of coordinating care for an especially at risk group of people primarily by leveraging technology (the more tools we create the easier the tasks get), being open to creative solutions, reinforcing an established framework that instills strong teams bonds and by working together as an organization, from our greenest Caregiver to our most seasoned executive, to creatively and diligently exert extraordinary amounts of effort for the betterment of those we are responsible to care for. This job is hard, arguably the most challenging set of responsibilities in Social Services, but isn’t that the case of the most worthwhile endeavors? While we express these challenges ad nauseam during our interview process, we have found that even the most compassionate individuals struggle to self-motivate and put forth the necessary level of effort to stay on top of a given caseloads’ needs over an extended period of time. This is ok. This job is not for everyone; it is challenging and requires a unique person who is able to stare adversity in the face and work against it, every day. While I will not go into each item and categorically explain how they deviate from the reality and values of our organization, I will key in on two; how we value our employees and the statement that the job is impossible to do successfully. 1. Value: A Case Managers’ value is tied to their ability to exert high levels of effort towards managing their caseload, their ability to deal with failure and rebound from it and their ability to operate as an equally contributing team member. If you can realize these values, you will be successful at First Choice and do amazing things. 2. Impossible Job: Nothing is impossible but things can be challenging, our responsibilities are such. We experience success every day, and reinforce those successes so that our team members don’t forget to soak in those little victories. We work together as a team and are successful in helping the clients we are tasked to care for. Below describes some of our recent efforts: 1. Case Load Sizes: We work hard to keep our Caseloads small with average caseload being 68 Clients per Case Manager. The industry average caseload size is 120 Clients/ Case Manager. Keeping caseload sizes as small as possible is important to us and a big factor in keeping the stress level down. 2. Team Work: when an emergency arises we utilize our “A-1”protocol in which the full Client Services and HR departments actively assist to resolve the issue. Once activated a Case Manager receives the assistance of 30+ other staff members to help bring about a resolution. 3. Formation of New Positions: We recently founded a new position that is responsible for taking on new client referrals. This protocol/position provides immediate work load reduction and relief for what would be the regularly assigned manager. 4. Creative Schedules: We will beta test a 4day/week, 10hr/shift schedule as opposed to the standard Mon-Fri 9am-5pm beginning 1/1/18. 5. Health Insurance: Our fully covered health insurance plan allows for you to add massages, acupuncture, counseling services to your self-care regiment. Your review is a tough read and I do not view it as an accurate assessment of our organization or our principles. Thank you though for the opportunity to highlight some of our philosophy and I wish you the best in realizing your dreams.