Rehabilitation after a head or brain injury is vital in maximising your chances of making the best possible improvement but who is able to organise this? After you have completed your rehabilitation, you still need specialist help and support, where can you find practical assistance to put that together?
The role of case management
We have been at the forefront for many years of developing case management and support services for our clients recovering from brain injury. A case manager is a specialist, for example a trained occupational therapist or nursing specialist, who can co-ordinate help, advice and support for someone who needs input after a serious injury. Where there is the option of recovering compensation after an injury, we always seek to secure funding to ensure that the right specialist help is in place.
Selecting a case manager
Because a brain injury causes particular challenges, we recognise the importance of ensuring that any case manager supporting our clients has the right experience, skills and training to suit. Personality counts too: - you need to have absolute trust and confidence in your case manager to get the best out of that relationship. Sometimes, case management may only be needed for a fixed period whilst things are sorted out, but sometimes the arrangement may need to continue for a long time. Before a case manager is chosen for you, you will have the opportunity to meet that person at your own home to help you decide if you would want them to work with you.
Support programmes
A case manager may also be only one part of a larger therapy or care team. We specialise in securing interim payments of compensation to ensure that where therapists and support workers or “enablers” will help, we can arrange the funding needed to put a package together.
If you are going to need long term support, we believe strongly that every effort should be made to put the right support in place before your claim is concluded so that it is possible to work out what the right support is, how to organise it for you and what it is going to cost you long term. We look to ensure that any case manager arranges brain injury training and advice for support workers or “enablers” and that they are carefully recruited and supervised to match the support that you need.
Further information
Don’t just take our word for it. On this page we have included links to independent organisations that support the work of case managers, and we have added in some client stories to help show in practical terms what difference a good case manager can make.
Useful links
Why not check out these web links, to organisations that support the work of independent case managers? They contain further and more detailed information about the role of a brain injury case manager as well as news and developments around case management services
British Association of Brain Injury Case Managers (known as BABICM for short)
http://www.babicm.org/
Case Management Services UK (known as CMS-UK for short)
http://www.cmsuk.org
If you are looking for a good case manager, contact us or approach these organisations for further help.