Home improvement agencies carry out a wide range of functions accross all tenures working across health, housing and social care. The client lies at the heart of all these processes, from facilitating a Disabled Facilities Grant to repairing a dripping tap.
The effectiveness of the agency depends upon how much difference the intervention makes to the client's life. Making a difference requires a clear understanding of the client's circumstances and what they want. The agency's role is to inform and guide clients through the decision-making process, as real choices are based upon complete knowledge of all the available options.
The caseworker usually makes the first contact with the client and is tasked with explaining the role of the agency, understanding what the client wants and enabling them to decide upon the course of action to make it happen.
This module will look at the mechanisms the agency has set up to facilitate these processes and how the casework function links with other services offered by the agency. Firstly it examines the general role of the caseworker and then drills down to specialist functions - housing options, crisis support and advocacy. The common theme throughout the module is how the agency works with the client and how staff are inducted, trained and supervised to provide a person-centred service.
Areas covered in this module are as follows.
Client assessment
Assessing the current situation
Assessing the desired situation
A housing options service
Caseworker skills and development
Clients with complex needs
Advocacy
Duty of care
Performance benchmarking (this is optional).
An overview form is available as a PDF download here
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