Mr. X Case Study

Mr. X is a caseworker at the County Human Services Department. One of his clients, Mr. Y, is a young man who presents with many issues. He has been in foster care and is about to age out of the program to live on his own. Mr. X will be assisting him with this transition. In an effort to connect with his young client, Mr. X accepts Mr. Y’s invitation of friendship on social media. In addition, he provides his agency email address to Mr. Y when he asks if there is not another way to make an appointment than making a telephone call and going through a receptionist. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Y experiences several disappointing events. He loses his job, and the young woman he was dating tells him she is no longer interested in seeing him. Further, he is struggling to make ends meet and becomes unable to pay the rent on his first apartment. At his wits end, he makes a vague suicidal threat on Facebook and sends a desperate request to Mr. X to set up an appointment as soon as possible. Out on calls, Mr. X doesn’t check his email or his Facebook account for several days, missing Mr. Y’s cues. His
The policy can also include a disclosure about the human service professional only using email to arrange or modify appointments and clients are instructed to not use email to correspond about clinical matters (Reamer, 2012). Having this clear statement of what email is for could have helped Mr. Y in knowing emailing wouldn’t be a way to reach out to Mr. X. The dilemma with this though is Mr. Y originally asked for email for the purpose of contacting the agency for appointment purposes. The other side of this though is Mr. Y would have had clear definition of email by having the policy of email explained to him. This would protect Mr. Y but it would also protect Mr. X with him being negligent in the care of Mr.