This week, our MCMC leadership and field management teams will gather for our regular monthly meetings. Among the many things that will be discussed is the issue of public relations and what our efforts need to be in order to ensure that the progress of the consortium is accurately reported, and that success stories are shared. From the beginning, we knew that this project would not be able to solve every issue related to the ongoing recovery effort from a truly devastating disaster, Hurricane Katrina. In fact, we knew that our project would have a limited scope and funding that would be tightly monitored. In spite of many obstacles, and because of countless hours of negotiations, we were able to construct a project that allows us to continue to work with those who are struggling to recover.

Your efforts have been tremendous as you have worked with those cases that were assigned to your organizations, and our reporting data continues to reflect the importance and relevance of the project. Our leadership team continues to advocate at the state and federal levels by using the information that you have provided in the database and your narrative reports. You should be proud of the work you have been doing and I hope that you will share your successes with all who would ask you about your work. Of course there are challenges remaining: the lack of affordable housing, a lack of direct services dollars available for cases, a slumping job market, and the list goes on and on. Many of these factors are out of our control as case managers. We have no funding available to us, in the consortium, for direct services and we cannot build houses. Those are not our jobs. Our job is to continue to work with our clients in order to prepare them for the next steps in their recovery. Our primary functions are assessment, planning, advocacy, linking (clients to available resources), and monitoring our cases in order to ensure that our clients are making progress toward their recovery. You will hear some say that case management may not be the solution to the recovery effort. I would say that no solution has been developed that does what a case manager seeks to accomplish: client self determination. Case managers are critical elements in the recovery effort in that we seek to prepare clients for the future as opposed to only providing for the “here and now” needs that so many of our clients have. As I stated earlier, our leadership team will continue to advocate for the necessary resources and time that our clients and case managers need in order to complete the recovery. I offer you, case managers, encouragement to continue your unprecedented work, and support from our leadership and field management teams as we move forward. Thanks for all that you do.

Blessings,

Stephen