Initial contact

CRAs will be responsible for efficiently locating and contacting target families, and will have to become familiar with their assigned neighborhood in order to find customers efficiently and safely. They will also tell friends, family and neighbors about the Project’s goals, identify community partners, visit churches, schools, businesses and community based organizations in area; and set up presentations at these partner agencies and at WIC, teen parenting classes & schools to explain the Project. They will be responsible for locating and contacting target families by phone or in person, for making a home visit to them, clearly educating the family about project goals and family and CRA roles, and the value of involvement, and for sharing appropriate materials with the family. The CRA will perform an initial assessment of a target family’s need for the CRA’s services by asking questions and observing the family situation.

Relationship

The CRA will establish an ongoing, trust-based relationship with interested families to empower these families to take control of their health care needs. She/he will determine how well the family member’s can read and write, and find out what each family’s experience has been with Medicaid managed care and their providers. The CRA will use a questionnaire to determine the family’s need for Project intervention/empowerment, the family's strengths and needs, their ability to access and solve problems with health care providers, their need for health education, and for welfare or other social services. The CRA will ask for feedback to make sure a family is ready to participate in project. She/he will educate the family with a flip chart on the Project and Managed Care.

The CRA will also establish a relationship with the agencies that serve her/his customers. She/he will visit and obtain information on the agencies resources and explain our Project at health and social service providers' offices or clinics in order to make successful referrals for customers.

Coaching

The CRA will first identify an immediate need and develop a response to that need with the customer, guiding the family toward a solution, in order to show them how the Project will work. The Worker will make an agreement with the family to visit again in exchange for specific task to create a positive health-seeking experience, and show parents that their older children can participate in these solutions.

The CRA will give families empty Health Folders and help customers fill the folders with important medical papers, including financial and medication information, in order to make sure that the customer is prepared for visits to health care and social service providers. She/he will show the family how to collect important numbers and post them in the home. The CRA will ask the family to list their resources and assets, coach them to identify and locate their provider, and help them figure out how to get transportation or overcome other barriers in getting to the doctor or clinic.

The CRA will then coach the family through appointment-making with the provider, using the phone. If necessary, she/he will also coach them on how to call DHS for assistance, call member services to make complaint or to change providers, or call Maximus to change their plan. The CRA will also coach them on how to find phone numbers, get help with transportation, ask their provider questions about treatment/illness, and access school-based clinic services and resources such as their pharmacist. Families will be coached in getting information about their medications and the use of directories and maps.

The CRA will model the tasks the family needs to learn to do on their own, empowering the family to obtain health and/or social services and medications or supplies for themselves and their children. In this process, the CRA will guide families to take part in self-care education, and make "contracts" with family members to make changes in health-seeking behaviors.

The CRA will ask families to specify needs they would like to target for intervention. The CRA and the family will work together to develop a Family Health Calendar of preventive checkups, health education, and disease management, if necessary. The CRA will need to be clear and convincing in explaining and convincing the consumer of the benefits of behavior change and to praise family members for successful behavior change. CRAs will also be responsible for communicating closely with their Team, Team Leader and Supervisor to determine what health and non-health referrals need to be made for the family. They will also be expected to give the family clear and adequate referrals to agencies and providers that can help them. The CRA will maintain a good relationship with any agencies they often refer their customers to.

The CRA will have an annual caseload of approximately ___ families.

Follow-Up

To help prevent missed appointments, the CRA will flag the files of customers who have agreed to call their provider. She or he will then prepare the provider with a phone call asking staff to be receptive to customer's first call. After an appointment has been made, the CRA will call the family to get the appointment time, and call again to remind them just before the appointment.

The CRA will tell the Team and her/his supervisor about customer problems in order to get help in finding appropriate solutions, and will provide customers with appropriate referrals and accurate numbers and addresses for those referrals, following up, when necessary, to make sure customers have reached the agencies referred to.

The CRA will check on a regular basis with customers to see if they are following the preventive health care steps in the Family Health Calendar and to help the family overcome barriers that prevent them from completing these steps.

Record-Keeping

The CRA will be required to accurately document and report all of his or her/his contacts and visits with customer families on the Family Intake Form, the Needs Assessment Questionnaire, or in her/his Contact Log. During home visits the CRA will record key words to remind her/him of family situations and needs and, out of sight of the home, document results of visits that may need to be discussed with her/his Team. The CRA will be responsible for promptly handing in these forms to staff responsible for putting information in the computer database, and for keeping each family’s file complete and properly filed.

Complete Family Files will contain:

The Intake Form with: accurate phone #s, addresses, triggers and family member ages; the family’s history of using health care services; family background information; social services access history; the family’s current provider experience, health education and public assistance history; any history of filing grievances;

The Needs Assessment Questionnaire with: family knowledge of how to apply for services, of information about medication/equipment utilization; a list of family assets; the CRA’s opinion of family coping skills; a list of family member strengths and needs;

The Contact Log with: all contacts and visits made with family; all referrals made to the family and the results of those referrals;

Complete Notes on: the family’s progress in following the Family Health Calendar, getting Health Steps exams, other preventive care; and

Signed consent forms, confidentiality forms; and other releases of medical information.

The CRA will also be responsible for keeping complete and accurate mileage and phone logs, and for handing in mileage reimbursement requests in a timely manner.

The CRA will be trained how to record and report any signs or symptoms of child/elder/handicapped abuse or domestic abuse, or unsafe or unsanitary conditions, to the Team Leader/Supervisor in order to make the appropriate report to government agencies.

Requirements:

The CRA must have very good interpersonal skills and phone manners. The CRA must be courteous and friendly, and show sensitivity and discretion in dealing with customers and when obtaining and using personal and medical information. She/he must be aware of and responsive to her/his customers’ reactions. She/he must be clear and convincing in enlisting families to maintain relationships with the Project and in explaining and coaching members about how to utilize Medicaid managed care and other health and social services. She/he must be able to find out and record accurate information about family abuse or neglect, or other delicate health problems, without putting her/himself or others in danger, and without breaking confidentiality.

In order to obtain customers’ confidence, and to establish trustworthiness, reliability and credibility with participating families, the CRA will be required to treat customers with respect, politeness and kindness, and to exercise tact, discretion and perceptiveness in listening to and observing family members. The CRA will need to be patient, sensitive and firm in helping families identify needs and accept responsibility for meeting them. For example, the CRA must be sensitive to customers’ scheduling problems, but firm in emphasizing the need to get to preventive care appointments.

The CRA will also be required to be polite, dignified, friendly and articulate in informing other community agencies about Project and in maintaining relationships with other agencies for education and referral purposes. The CRA must be able to work well with a team.

The CRA must always behave in a polite and dignified manner, follow the chain of command, and obey agency policy. She/he must be thorough and accurate in keeping records. She/he must be able to ask for help from supervisors or additional training when needed to fulfill her/his job requirements.

Employee Evaluation

Performance objectives, including the numbers of families successfully engaged in changing their behavior about health, will be determined based on target numbers agreed upon by the CRA and her/his supervisor. These targets will include the numbers of people: contacted, reached, referred to case management, and brought into a relationship with the Project; who can identify CRA roles; who say they have used information given them by CRA; who stay in a relationship with the project; who see their doctor; who get preventive exams; who make appointments and get to them; who fulfill the steps in the Family Health Calendar, and who get access to non-health social services. There will also be target numbers of uninsured children who get access to health care services.

Performance will also be measured by the accuracy and completeness of all records, logs, and family files.

Logistic Support

While on the job, the CRA helps in preparing class or meeting rooms for educational sessions by preparing necessary teaching aids and equipment and otherwise maintaining the cleanliness of our facility or community facilities the Project is using.

Organizational Management

The Community Resource Advisor is responsible for taking care of all matters that have to do with her/his daily work record. Because her/his job is dependent on finding and getting to customers, the CRA keeps an accurate log of time spent in activities related to customer contact so as to record how much time she/he spends on each activity. Two times a week she/he completes her/his time sheet recording the number of hours worked, and when she/he is paid looks over her/his paycheck to make sure it matches the time sheet. The CRA also completes the necessary forms to document requests for time off, and makes sure that the records, requests and forms she/he uses are signed by the correct supervisory staff.

Staff/Time Management