Exercise I: LGBT Youth and Their Families

Read the following pamphlet from the director of the Family Acceptance Project on “Helping Families Support Their LGBT Children.” Based on the findings from this pamphlet as well as what you have learned from the chapter, develop a hypothetical case management plan to assist a gay teen who has run away from home because of a negative coming out experience with his or her family members. The goal is to reunite the client with the family, and to help the family and the teen to come to a mutual understanding and respect for the teen’s sexual identity.

1. List the approaches to case management that would be most useful for this client, with special attention to the challenges of working with minor youth, as well as the challenges related to a possible lack of a strong family support structure.

2. Discuss how you can simultaneously help the individual client increase his or her self-esteem and strengthen his or her support system, while educating the teen’s parents and extended family, who may be hesitant to accept the client’s new sexual identity.

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Exercise I: Settings

There are three outcomes for the first meeting between a case manager and a person or applicant who wants or needs services: (1) the applicant feels free to express him- or herself; (2) the applicant leaves confident of being able to work with the case manager toward a satisfactory solution; (3) rapport is established between the two participants.

Clearly this first meeting or initial intake interview is important to the assessment phase and establishes a beginning tone to the case management process. The following two questions will help you think how to prepare for the intake interview:

1.  List the factors that you think would be important for this initial meeting regardless of setting.

2.  If you work in an agency and potential clients come to your office, describe how you would arrange your office to facilitate the initial meeting or intake interview.

An intake interview can take place anywhere. For each of the following locations and potential clients, describe how you would structure or arrange the setting in order to most effectively interview the individual(s) who needs or desires services. Use the factors you describe in Question 1 to guide your answers.

·  A homeless person living on the streets who agrees to meet you at a fast-food restaurant

·  A teenager who lives in a group home where you will meet her after school

·  A single mother who invites you to her apartment in the projects