22 Clinic-Based Scenario: Sam Communicates Often
Sam, a new case manager and therapist in an outpatient therapy clinic, wants to establish positive relationships with the families of the children he serves. He schedules a weekly time to email helpful information to all families, in addition to personalized communications. The initial responses from caregivers are positive, thanking him for his proactive and clear communication. Noting this feedback, he extends the weekly messages to include additional resources, a longer message from him, and a calendar of community events. He then increases the frequency of the individualized messages to include reminders and suggestions. Soon, the positive feedback and communication from families decreases substantially. “I thought we established a really good relationship at the start!” Sam thinks. “Why haven’t they responded to my increased communications?”
Pause and Consider:
Is Sam’s communication strategy effective? How might you define and evaluate effectiveness?
Let’s consider this from the perspective of a family of a child on Sam’s caseload, Michael. Michael’s parents, uncle, and grandfather are a close family who share caregiving responsibilities.
Michael’s father, David, is the primary point of contact for the family and shares all communications from clinicians, staff, and educators with Michael’s mother, uncle, and grandfather. At first, David closely reviewed all session notes, shared these with the rest of the family, and responded to Sam on behalf of the family. When one of them had a question or concern, he shared so they all understood and worked collaboratively. He also paid attention to communications from the clinic and responded to that email address when they needed clarification on administrative functions like insurance billing, community events, and documentation for outside support services. As communication increased, he began to receive what he perceived as duplicate messages. He wasn’t sure if he should address questions about the ice cream social, for example, to the clinic or to Sam. His confusion turned into frustration and, rather than being a catalyst for even more emails, he decided to communicate in person when he was able to to meet with clinic staff on site.
Pause and Consider:
We discussed that every family member wants the best for their children. They want to have open lines of communication with clinicians and educators. They also often have other caregiving responsibilities, including older members of their families, other children, and animals. They have jobs and homes to maintain.
If you were Sam, how might you facilitate a communication cadence that informs and invites important adults to collaboratively solve challenges with you while avoiding communication overload? Take a moment to outline an initial, brief communication. What information do families need to know? What might be nice to know, but unnecessary? And what do you need to know about them?
