Update August 10, 2009

Monday, 10 August 2009 08:07

This week MCMC has the great opportunity to gather together for a couple of days of refreshment, re-focus, and renewal! We will refresh our knowledge of the programmatic operations, re-focus our energies on the work of recovery, and renew our spirit of collaborative work. We have been given a great responsibility to continue to facilitate the recovery process for our clients, and we must have the right mindset as we move forward in order to sustain the successes we have experienced thus far. To date, in less than one year of official operations, we have been able to move over one half of our original clients into a closed status, and over seventy percent of that number reports having been able to close with their primary recovery needs met. This is no small feat!

When we began this project, there was great apprehension surrounding its lack of direct service funding. Historically, no disaster case management program funded by Federal sources has included direct service dollars, as clients are able to access assistance through the Individual Assistance process or through other privately funded endeavors. However, as we stated from the beginning, the delivery of case management services is an invaluable resource in and of itself, while at the same time, the case management function can inform the overall process and influence the provision of resources that are brought on line for the purpose of recovery.

Time and again, during this last year, MCMC has been able to demonstrate the statistics that have helped shape the conversations surrounding the provision of resources including actual housing units and housing vouchers that are scheduled to come on line in the very near future. Case management continues to prove that its function serves both clients and the institutions that make long term recovery and mitigation decisions. This is the primary reason we have been able to move some very difficult cases to a recovered status, even in spite of the fact that we have no direct service funding. Your work as case managers continues to “tell the story” of your clients in a way that no survey or geo-mapping process can. Your “human intelligence” and documentation of your clients’ needs continues to shape the types and amounts of resources that are needed within the communities we serve. I hope you realize just how important your work has been, and will continue to be, as we move forward. Our charge this week is to concentrate, to “keep the main thing, the main thing.” Let’s focus on what we need to do in order to continue experiencing success in moving our clients toward recovery. In return, our staff vows to give you our best this week as we cover material that is designed to help all of us refresh, re-focus, and renew!

Have a Blessed week.

Stephen P Carr II, MA, MFT

Program Director

Mississippi Case Management Consortium