Case Study: Social Agency

Social Agency Paper
Oakland University

Overview For my agency paper, I chose Adult Well Being Services in Detroit, Michigan. According to the website, the agency “works closely with some of our community 's most vulnerable adults, their families and caregivers to provide them the support they need to live independently and with dignity” (awbs.org). Some of these issues involve mental health, substance abuse, developmental disabilities, aging concerns, HIV/AIDS, other medical issues, grandparents raising grandchildren, and the need for guardianship and conservatorship for legally incapacitated adults. The field of practice most closely related to our textbook is “Social Work with Older Adults.” According to
Ikera worked as a program supervisor at Adult Well-Being Services leading a guardianship department of about 300 consumers and seven employees. She coordinated mental health and medical care, including end of life care. Ms. Ikera applied for and followed through with applications for federal and state financial and medical assistance; prepared, filed, and followed through with Probate Court guardianship applications and annual reports; and coordinated continuum of care from hospital to place of residence. Previously, she worked on an Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) Team as a Clinical Case Manager. She provided psychological evaluations and crisis intervention for adult consumers with severe and persistent mental illness, substance abuse, and legal issues. Working from a strength based perspective, Ms. Ikera helped develop individualized treatment plans and monitored treatment progress, monitored medication and other needs to keep her clients living independently in the community. She was recently hired at the University Of Michigan Hospital as a clinical social worker on the outpatient Kidney Transplant Unit. She will be evaluating patients with kidney disease to see if they meet criteria to be placed on the transplant list. Ms. Ikera is a member of NASW and ABSW and had this to say about her motivation for entering social
Ikera and learning more about the profession, particularly working with older adults. As the aging population grows, I am relatively sure that job prospects in this particular field of practice will be immense by the time I graduate. I know that I would enjoy helping adults transition back into the community, but would have difficulty pulling the unwilling out of their homes. I may be interested in working with the elderly in some capacity at some point in the future, but for now I am gathering as much information as possible on the intricacies of each field before I decide on one in particular. This experience has validated my ideas about social work on the positive side regarding helping individuals adjust to newer--and hopefully better circumstances--and on the negative side regarding minimal funding and huge caseloads. It is my sincere wish that in the future, the economy will turn around allowing for increased funding, in general, and especially enough to take care of the aging men and women, parents and grandparents who have raised us throughout the