Discussion topic: Urban and Rural Service Coordination

This week, you will solve a service coordination problem with your classmates. Together, you will work through two scenarios that are encountered by human service workers at every level in every type of agency in two different areas: urban and rural.

Complete the following for both the urban and rural service coordination scenarios:

List at least three services that your clients are likely to need as they prepare to leave treatment and transition back into the community.

Conduct research to find names of appropriate agencies and services that will serve the needs of your clients.

Decide how clients will access these services. (You can be creative-human service professionals are always trading services with each other.)

Urban Service Coordination

For the first part of this Discussion on urban service coordination, you are working in Tampa, FL as a case manager for a woman's substance abuse treatment center and have been asked to create a service coordination database.

For the purposes of this assignment, you may assume the following: clients are mothers, unemployed, in need of stable housing, and without transportation.

Together with your coworkers (classmates for this simulation), decide which services are most likely to be needed by your clients. Then, conduct research to find agencies that offer the services you identified as necessary for your population.

Next, decide how your clients will access these services (hint, how will they travel to the agencies?).

Once you have provided the information requested, work together as a class to develop the best coordination plan possible. Below are suggested resources to help you begin.

Suggested Resources:

Demographic information

Public transportation

211 Tampa

Rural Service Coordination

The second part of the discussion on rural service coordination, takes place in Romney, WV, a much less concentrated area than Tampa, Fl.

This means that there are not enough dollars to create a substance abuse agency to serve only 100 clients. For that reason, it can be more difficult to provide effective case management to clients.

Conduct the same research as before; however, in this second scenario, assume that you are a case manager in Romney, WV in a prison working with both males and females who have been incarcerated for at least five years.

Work together with your coworkers (classmates) to create a plan to serve your clients' needs so that they are prepared to be self-sufficient upon release.