Very soon, the Holiday Season will be upon us. As a matter of fact, I was recently in one of the “big box” stores shopping for a lawn chair and noticed that there were Christmas decorations already on display. That was about two weeks ago! I started thinking about how our own individual schedules are so often impacted by external influences or pressures. It was evident to me during my shopping trip that the retailers were trying to influence my schedule by marketing their products to me before I was ready to consider them.

In this instance, this external influence (the retailers’ agenda to sell stuff to me) on my own schedule had a negative impact because I was not ready to start thinking about my annual Christmas Eve shopping trip that is usually very stressful! You may be asking, how does any of this relate at all to Disaster Case Managers? Well, the answer is simple: Disaster Case Managers are external influences and they can either be a positive or negative force in a client’s life. Many of the clients that we are serving in this project, for whatever reason, have not achieved recovery from a disaster event that occurred over three years ago. There are lots of reasons why so many of our clients have become “stuck in the process.” As case managers, it is often our job to apply pressure to the situation in which the client finds him/herself stuck. Through our advocacy efforts, we become external influences that are meant to have a positive impact on the life and recovery efforts of our clients. We have to make sure that we do not start certain processes too early, and others too late. We have to constantly think about our influence and maintain our self-awareness so as to be sensitive to the clients’ needs. If we are not self-aware, we can become like the Holiday decorations in the big box store at the end of September, pushing our clients away from achieving their goals according to the most beneficial schedule. For example, it would not have made sense for me to buy Christmas cookies at the end of September because they would probably have been stale by the time I served them at a Holiday party. In the same way, it may be unwise for a client to begin the process of purchasing a home when there has been no effort to construct a budget to make sure that the client is able to sustain the monthly payments. I write all of this to point out that as case managers we need to be self-aware and make our external influence have a positive impact on the life and recovery efforts of our clients. Let’s be diligent and take one step at a time when working with new clients. Even as our program has time limitations, we must seek to provide thorough, high-quality services that will leave the client in a better position to sustain their recovery once our program comes to a close. Let’s get through one Season at a time and enjoy the successes as we go!

Blessings,

Stephen