Effective School Case Management
This Resource on Effective School Case Management is a valuable Toolkit arising out the work on the National MindMatters Plus Demonstration Project.
It offers a comprehensive model of case management around secondary students with high support needs in the area of mental health. Mental health specialists and school-based staff can use parts of the guidelines or the toolkit to examine and improve on their own practice. Read More
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Background and Rationale
Commissioned by the Australian Guidance and Counselling Association (AGCA), the School Case Management Project is located within the MindMatters Plus (MM+) initiative, which aims to improve the capacity of secondary schools to cater for students who have support needs in the area of mental health (MindMatters Plus Report, 2005, p.i).
Considerable work is currently being conducted on capacity-building of mental health programs in secondary schools. A need to supplement this work with specific processes allied to mental health programs in secondary schools was identified. Effective school case management was one key area of MM+ which subsequently was targeted for further identification and development.
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The entire Effective School Case Management documentation can be downloaded in a single file here, or in the three major sections below. In Section Three, "The Kit" in the menu on the left, you can obtain individual forms from the kit, as required.
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A Kit on Effective School Case Management - Section 1
SECTION 1: Overview: MM+ Case Management Project
This section provides a brief background of and rationale for the project. It states the aim and process of the project, and concludes with a summary of the framework for effective school case management.
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A Kit on Effective School Case Management - Section 2
SECTION 2: A framework for effective school case management.
This section encompasses the detailed version of what constitutes effective school case management. It has two main aims: firstly, to offer a resource to mental health specialists whose work involves school case management, such as school psychologists, school counsellors, social workers, youth workers, and G.P.'s; and secondly, to provide a comprehensive cross reference for school-based staff who are not specialists in the area of school case management but are involved in working with secondary school students who have support needs.
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A Kit on Effective School Case Management - Section 3
SECTION 3: A kit for developing effective school case management practices.
This section consists of a kit which is designed to engage school-based staff in consultation with mental health specialists in appraising and developing the quality of their school's case management practices. The kit comprises seven resources:
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Checklists based on the framework in section 2, which require staff to appraise the extent to which they consider particular aspects of effective school case management practices to be undeveloped/developing/developed/well established in their school. Available on-line;
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Development Plan forms which give staff the opportunity to target particular aspects of their case management practices for development and improvement;
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Summaries of the main aspects of school case management, which can be used as part of a professional learning program (e.g. distribution to participants; OHP);
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A pro-forma sample of a case conference record;
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A Power Point presentation of the main aspects of school case management which can be used as part of a professional learning program (available as a separate Power Point file);
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An example of a school's process for case management (available as a separate Power Point file);
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A list of useful websites which are associated with mental health in schools and case management.
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