Should You Take Dysfunctional Family Cases- 5 test questions.

During this coming holiday season aging professionals, including geriatric care managers are bound to have inquiries from dysfunctional families. Should you take the case?

Before engaging the dysfunctional family, the care manager or aging professional must want and be ready to work with the very difficult to serve. Ask these questions of yourself.

1. Are you prepared to withstand for the emotional drain of working with families who are demanding, needy and devaluing?
2. Do you have the available time and can scale back the caseload or increase your staff in order to accommodate the intensive time commitment and hours that these families require.
3. Can you factor into your business plan the high-risk nature of these families as fee-for-service clients, including a wide fluctuation in billing?
4. Can you offer the increased need for business support services and more tightly managed business practices to meet these clients’ overwhelming needs for structure and predictability.
5. Can you put up with a higher rate of termination and accounts receivable issues?
6. Do you or one of the staff have at least 5 years of practice and the credentials to work with difficult families including and LCSW, MFT, mediation and extensive work with family dynamics, family therapy and mediating.

If you are prepared for these changes in your practice, for the inherent increase of the work intruding on your personal time and the potential for your greatest challenge, then consider accepting them when they stream miserably in over the holidays.