Geriatric care management tools or an aging professional’s tools fill up an entire toolbox. They are like tools in a carpenter’s toolbox- a hammer, drill, saw and architectural plans. One of those tools, a very potent one that will make your care plan hold up, is the  ” Core Skills”. 

Care managers and geriatric social workers partner with seniors and their family caregivers to implement the recommendations and provide on-going monitoring of the plan. They bring to the relationship a unique set of CORE skills that help family caregiver achieve greater success in their roles.

 

C  containment 

O  objectivity

R  sources

E  expertise

 

Family caregivers often describe feeling “stuck” which adds a new sense of stress to an already overbooked mind.  Care managers often serve as a “container” in which the family caregiver can deposit some of these uncomfortable feelings.  For family caregivers, knowing that there is a care manager accessible, with whom they can talk and who will respond with empathy, can help relieve some of the burden and stress.

 

In order to contain the anxiety for their clients, active listening techniques help care managers stay focused.  This technique involves listening with a purpose. It is used most effectively to gain information, understand others, solve problems, see how another person feels, or to show support.  Using specific phrases to clarify, encourage, restate reflect, summarize, validate, and empower help the GCM to stay engaged in a meaningful way.

 

 

 

Bunni Dybnis MA, LMFT, CMC Director of Professional Services LivHome, LA
and Steve Barlam Chief Professional Officer, Co-Founder LivHome
MSW, LCSW, CMC, both highly expert care managers, created a seminal chapter on the Tools that a care manager or geriatric social worker need to work with aging families in my book Care Manager’s Working With the Aging Family.  they cover these CORE skills in that chapter.

This is the only textbook out that focuses on care management tools needed to work with the aging family. The text addresses the unmet needs of care managers working with aging clients as well as the client’s entire family. With its in-depth focus on the “ aging family system,” this book fills a gap for medical case managers and geriatric care managers, giving them tools to better meet the treatment goals of aging clients and their families, as the older clients move through the continuum of care in institutional based settings or community-based settings.It is now available for a reduced price through Jones and Publisher