Collaborative Helping: A Strengths Framework for Home-Based Services

Excited for the content but not excited with the beat up book that was sent to me.

When I picked up this book, I'll admit that what I was really hoping was something I could have my staff read that helped them understand how to navigate the complicated dynamics of working with families in their homes, as opposed to the more traditional clinic settings. And this book does indeed have a chapter on that -- but just the one chapter. The vast bulk of the book is about collaborative helping maps -- the theory behind them, and how to use them in different settings. This can be a great toolset to have in working with vulnerable families, but it's far from the only strengths-based approach that is relevant. As a result, for me the book felt a bit repetitive in places, giving many examples of the same skill, rather than branching out more into other strength-based approaches.That said, if the concept of collaborative helping maps is new to you or your team, I think this could be a very valuable book. And truthfully, I think it's probably a helpful framework in many office-based settings as well, not just with home-based services. It is written at a very accessible and almost modular level, which would make it work well to parcel out and read together as a team. Myself, I'm going to have my staff read Chapter 7 for one of our staff training meetings, and keep this book on our shelves in case they want to learn more about the topic in general.

I've worked in family support and child protection for a long time, and this is the kind of information that has not previoiusly been available. The concept of building on strengths is not new, but this book has good, solid advice on how to do it.

This book is a highly professional, caring, and comprehensive examination of the ways in which services can be provided for individuals in the home environment. Stated very simply, the central proposition here is that those who need services in the home are best-served by multiple helpers -- professionals and non-professionals -- who collaborate.However, providing such care is rarely simple and the book embraces these complexities. There's an admirable mix of the theoretical and the practical here. The book provides broad perspectives and then elegantly narrows in on specifics. This isn't a book of "case studies" per se, but the authors recognize the human dimension in this topic and provide many vignettes of home-based services -- involving both care-receivers and their families -- that I found quite illuminating.A great deal of attention is paid here to visualizing, devising, and managing a "map" of services. And a map such as this will, over time, change, and the authors discuss the importance of adapting care to changing situations.The entire tone adopted here -- both in the prose and in the ways in which services are provided -- is positive and life-affirming. So welcome!

Collaborative help is, sometimes, a necessary challenge that demands a lot from all the parties involved - patient, relatives, friends and of course the professionals (and non-professionals too) involved in the care giving. If that is already a challenge in a hospital environment, the bar is set higher when it becomes home-based.The authors seems to be pouring years and years of their own, vast experience into this wonderful book that helps you understand (and make others understand) all the variables involved in a home-based service. So the book gives you most of the scenarios to be found and clearly breaks down to you all the things you need to consider in order to do your work in an efficient AND effective way.In that sense, this book seems to run the extra mile in order to leave no stone left unturned. Not being a professional - but with seniors in my family who live in that scenario - this book was a positive surprise, written by experienced people who really care.RECOMMENDED!

As a former social worker, I know the maze one goes through to try to line up the services needed to help home-based clients. This book is well written, and written in a basic enough vocabulary that even the layman would find it extremely useful. The authors have done a great job explaining the need for collaborative care, and the decision making process behind it. It will help the healthcare provider explain the need for collaborative help to both the client and their family members. It's a fast read, and contains great information that will provide the basics for planning and executing collaborative care for either clients or family members. With the aging of the American population and home based care becoming more popular, it is a timely and useful tool.

If one wanted to use a euphemism, one might label this text "practical." I am just a bit more inclined to call it "common sense." Most of the information presented here is entirely intuitive. While I think that nearly every person in the field learned these basic techniques in college (or, perhaps, in the field), this text could prove a quick refresher to those who feel their compassion or patience dwindling. However, some of the techniques are a bit condescending (like the "Future House" concept in which the CPS worker literally draws the outline of a house on a piece of paper and then assists the "client" to fill-in reasons why CPS is at the house, what can be done to improve, etc. YIKES!). Most are fairly fundamental and, again, will merely serve as a reminder for some.While there is nothing innovative or particularly insightful here, it might be a strong addition to government bookshelf where CPS workers can flip through it for a fast idea.

Worked for what was needed

Good info