Congregational Care Case Management

Welcome everybody to this presentation on case management for congregational care. I AM your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. In this presentation, we're going to explore the reasoning behind congregational care case management, define the scope of congregational care case management, which I'll probably call CCCM here on out so it's not such a tongue twister. And identify the basics of the process for setting up a CCCM program. Many congregations are in a unique position to provide care management services to people in their congregation. Congregational care case managers can help link people to services, call to check in on them, and even help identify unmet needs in the community and think about ways to develop programs to meet those needs, like adding support groups, creating a volunteer list, creating a pet food pantry. In addition to a food pantry. Interfaith Hospitality Network provides a lot of services for people who are homeless. And not everybody, not every community is engaged with Interfaith Interfaith Hospitality Network. So there are a lot of things that can be done. And I found through the years that in just about any congregation there are dozens, if not hundreds of people who really want to volunteer and really want a difference, but may not know how or may want something that is a little bit more structured. And congregational care case management actually can be a way that they can pitch in and help. So why would you want to do this? Well, a healthy, happy congregation is going to be more engaged and be able to be of greater service to the community as well as the congregation. So that's one reason. But most of the insurance plans out there don't cover case management for mild to moderate issues like depression, grief or life transitions. So there are a lot of times where I as a clinician really think somebody needs case management, but it's not something that I can bill for. It's not something that a case manager can bill for. So it's left up to quote community services or me working with the person in a non billable capacity. So congregational care pastors are in a great position to sort of bridge that gap and communicate with care providers that may be working with somebody who've identified that they have some additional needs that could be met through the congregational care case management program. Another way to get referrals is, you know, people self refer or they refer. A family member or someone who's been seeing one of the pastors for counseling may also benefit from case management services. So there are a lot of ways that these referrals can come in to the CCCM program. CCCMs help people identify and link with needed services, including health and Behavioral health professionals, transportation, food, you know, the list is pretty much endless. CCCMs do not, however, diagnose or treat any health or physical health condition. There are professionals who do that, and there may be professionals in your congregation who are licensed to do that. However, it's recommended to avoid those nasty dual relationships and everything that people who are CCCMs are just that they're case managers and they refer out for diagnosis, treatment and, and other services. CCCMs do not handle the finances, loan money to, or serve as a guarantor or legal guardian for any of the participants. That's another area that can get really sticky with dual relationships and legal and liability. So those are things that you want to avoid doing. The CCCMS will connect people with financial managers, CPAs, other people who can serve in that capacity as needed. And finally, while it's not required, CCCMs usually are admonished from performing any services that they are otherwise regulated by the state from. From doing, even if they're licensed. If they're not licensed to do it, then obviously they can't do it. Like dietitian, behavioral health, CPAs, massage therapy. There are a lot of things that are licensed by the state and these things a CCCM will not do within the scope of the congregational care case management program. So why would you need a congregational care case manager? Well, there are a lot of different reasons. Postpartum. Sometimes people have postpartum depression and they can use some assistance connecting with support and resources. New parents may and I know when I was a new parent, I had no idea what I was doing. And it would have been beneficial to have assistance connecting with resources and parent groups and those sorts of things. It would have been helpful to be able to know what the respite resources were like in our community. You could go to the local library and there was a specific area in every local library, excuse me, that had cushions and toys and things for children to play with so the parents could go there and not feel like they were so isolated. For example, postpartum, there also become issues for some people with lactation, with affording formula. There are a lot of things that come up that many people may not feel equipped to handle. And the CCCM can link those parishioners with providers with specialists in the area that can assist them. There may be a family member who has a hospital stay. So think about it. If the primary caregiver, mom or dad, whoever that is, has to go into the hospital for a week or two weeks or something, if the family's not used to adapting to that, then there may be not only a lot of issues with anxiety and grief and stuff because that caregiver is in the hospital, but there's also a lot of other stuff like doing the laundry and the housework and juggling the schedule and getting people to T ball and whatever else that may not get done. So it can be very overwhelming to the family members who are not in the hospital, for example. So a CCCM can help try to link that person to resources. Now part of a good congregational care case management program is having a list of volunteers who are able to potentially pitch in and help. But we'll talk about some of the liability with that as we go. Post surgery, people may get home from the hospital like after having a hip replaced and not be able to do the things that they need to do. A CCCM can help people figure out what their insurance might cover, what long term care insurance might cover, what resources are available, and maybe how to get things like food delivered. There's lots more options today than there were 20, 30 years ago in order to get like full meals prepared meals delivered to your doorstep. So there are options. Same thing during an illness. If somebody has an extended illness, the there may be a lot of things in the house, like if my mother in law had an extended illness, God forbid, I think that household would kind of cease to function because she holds everything together, she makes all the meals, she does all the laundry, she organizes everything. So if for some reason she became ill and not able to do those things, there would be again a lot of stress on the family. And the CCCM in many cases can be a listening ear, can be a compassionate ear. The CCCM does not always have to connect people to lots and lots of resources. Again, the volunteer list, a great thing, especially in this current day and age is having a list of volunteers that are available to just be what I call talk partners. Sometimes people are stuck at home because of surgery or some other reason, or they just don't want to leave the house and, but they're lonely, they're feeling isolated and they just really want someone to talk to. And the CCCM could potentially connect a parishioner with another parishioner on the volunteer list who's willing to be a chat buddy. Or you could set up a hotline, so to speak, that people could call if they, if they just needed to talk. You know, maybe they aren't in crisis. You know, it's not something they call the suicide hotline for, but they're lonely and they just, they really Want some human connection. Normal aging is another great place for CCCMs because normal aging is not covered as a medical issue, because it's not. It's normal aging. But as we age, we start to develop, you know, different problems. There are times where, you know, as balance gets worse, as we need to figure out how to, for example, afford getting a step in bathtub put in. There are a lot of things. Now, some of these things are covered by Medicare if somebody is on Medicare, but if they're not, then helping the person connect with community resources that may be able to help them afford modifications in order to prolong their independence can be a great asset to a CCCM program. Life transitions, like after a divorce or a death can be another time when people can benefit from having a CCCM there to just help them organize their life. They may not need a bunch of referrals, but they may feel so overwhelmed with all these new responsibilities or these new tasks that they, they have to do, they can't even begin to figure out where to start. And a CCCM can sit down with the person virtually. You know, a lot of times this is done over the phone and just say, okay, let's make a list of all the things that you need to do and then we'll start figuring out how to get those done in a meaningful order. CCCMs can be helpful for people in the congregation who have depression, anxiety or addiction, specifically with helping them locate resources, treatment resources. And like the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has a website that lets you know about treatment centers in your area. There are many different ways to help people afford their medication, like GoodRx and patient assistance programs. And all of these things I cover in a variety of videos on the YouTube channel that talk about case management and working with older adults. So you can find a lot of tips and tools in that if you're looking for assistance. Job loss is another time when someone may, you know, really be thrown for a loop and benefit from having a CCCM that can help them navigate their way through the darkness of that time and family and relationship issues. Sometimes there are, you know, blended families or there are challenges in the family that may need a little bit of assistance. Now the pastor is probably involved in doing pastoral counseling with these people, but also helping them connect with resources as needed. For example, if there's domestic violence, helping them connect with domestic violence, shelter shelters, and in order so to get themselves safe. These are only a few ways that a CCCM can be helpful. Now I've devised on Allce Dot com a certificate in comprehensive case management that goes in depth. It's a 325 hour certificate. It's goes in depth into a lot of issues that people may be facing. But you can also find a lot of the videos and a lot of the information on our YouTube channel at allce.com I'm sorry@YouTube.com allceducation and those addresses will be in the notes to this presentation. So services that the person may be able to provide the CCCM may be able to provide referrals to and assistance connecting with counselors. CHRIS and when I say assistance connecting with sometimes people get overwhelmed trying to navigate the system and make their appointments and those sorts of things. So a CCCM can be very instrumental at helping somebody who's already feeling overwhelmed take that next step forward, helping them navigate the system. When you're connecting with counselors, for example, there are Christian counselors, there may be counselors at your church. Therapist Finder is something that's online that surprisingly a lot of people still aren't aware of, that you can find therapists in your local area and as I mentioned before, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Treatment Locator. Those are three places that you may be able to help people locate a clinician that is going to be helpful for them. And if they have insurance that's going to take their insurance, you can help connect them with free clinics. And a lot of these resources you're going to find out about by doing your due diligence to find out what's available in the community, but also by connecting with United Way information and referral or 2:1,1. And a lot of the United Way organizations are actually online now. So it's not like the olden days when we used to have to call and they would look through this book that was literally 8, 10 inches thick with, you know, text of different programs that were available. And that was in a little town called Gainesville, Florida. I can only imagine what it would look like in somewhere like Orlando or Nashville. Anyhow, the CCCM can also help people connect to social service and specialized programs like Medicaid and Medicare. Some people aren't sure how to connect with those services or connect with people who can explain those services to them. The CCCM is not expected to be an expert on insurance. They're expected to know enough that they can refer people to experts on insurance. Meals on wheels and housing and utility assistance are other programs that parishioners may sometimes need. As I mentioned before, domestic violence shelters or other types of shelters may be necessary referrals, housing and medication assistance, what they call custodial care. And this is care where somebody comes in and helps with laundry and making meals and bathing and that sort of thing. This is sort of the last step before somebody loses independence and they need to go into some sort of supported living. You can connect young fam or young children to Early Steps. Children who are birthed to three act who at, who are at risk of or showing developmental delays are eligible for a program called Early Steps. And anybody can make a referral to the Early Steps program. So if a parent is calling and concerned about their child, that is one referral that you could make. And transportation is another service that is sometimes hard to come by. Now that we have Ubers and things like that, it's a little bit easier. Back 20 years ago, you know, places, smaller towns often didn't have taxi services that were really that available. But there's also Medicaid, vans and there may be even transportation services through your church that people can use to go shopping or something like that. You can help people connect with available, what I call retail services like grocery delivery and Uber support groups both in person and online for things like grief, mood disorders, addiction and chronic conditions like pain, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc. You can help older adults and their loved ones connect with the local Area Agency on Aging. And they provide a tool, a ton of services and most people aren't aware that they even exist. And the state vocational rehabilitation program that is designed to help people get back to work if they either haven't ever worked or have a disability that has kept them out of work for a while. Go on the local Area Agency on Aging webpage. You know, and every city has their own Area Agency on Aging and you can find out a bunch of the services that they provide. I almost guarantee that you will be shocked at how many services that they actually offer that you had no idea. Same thing for your state vocational rehabilitation, if you type in that phrase. It's not always called the same thing, but. But you'll get the idea. And it is a state run department, so it'll be on your, you know, like for me it's tn.gov website. But they provide everything from job coaching, sometimes case management and counseling services, training, assessments. They provide a bunch of stuff designed to help people find either meaningful employment or, or get involved in activities that are meaningful, either supported employment or even volunteer work for some people who just can't work. So that is another awesome service that a CCCM can learn about and Help educate the parishioners about its existence and connect people as appropriate. Congregational Case management Implementation Obviously, you need a congregational case management director trained in case management. It can't do case management if you don't really know what it is. It's hard to keep everything within the scope. So ideally the case manager will have a certificate in case management like the one offered at all CEUs, but if they are a registered nurse or a social worker, they may have a certificate in case management from another organization. You want to have a congregational case management committee that meets at least quarterly to review utilization of the CCCM program. If it's being used a lot, great. Do we need to increase staffing? What can we do? How can we enhance what we're offering if it's not being used? Why not? Because in any congregation, even ones one that only has, you know, a hundred people, there are, there's almost inevitably someone who could benefit from some case management. So if the congregational well being, congregational health pastor is doing a lot of work and the CCCM program is getting no utilization, there's a breakdown there because the CCCM program should help take some of the load off the congregational health, Congregational wellness pastor and assist them with things that don't require pastoral counseling, for example. Another thing the committee will do is assess the effectiveness of the CCCM program. You know, are people happy with the services that they get? Are they successful? Are, are the case managers successful in connecting people with services that they need? If so, great. If not, then where are the training needs in order to enhance the effectiveness and unmet needs and suggestions? Maybe you need to start a pet food pantry or you need to start offering support groups on for people with autism or whatever the case may be, there's an identified unmet need. Well, once that need is brought to the table, then you start figuring out, well, how do we do this? How do we pay for it? How do we afford it? And that's when you might also start looking at grant opportunities. Because there are a lot of foundations that actually make small grants to faith based org organizations. So having someone on the committee who is skilled in grant writing is helpful. Not mandatory, but certainly helpful. And it's recommended that the CCCM program has an attorney that reviews all the policies and procedures to minimize liability. When you're working with people who are needing case management, that they're by definition basically vulnerable in some way, they are either emotionally vulnerable or physically vulnerable, cognitively vulnerable, et cetera. And we want to make sure that, number one, case managers don't step out stray outside of their bounds of competence. And number two, that they don't do anything that could be considered abusive, neglectful or is regulated by the state, such as dietetics. You need volunteers in the program. Once you've established the director and the committee, then you need to start finding volunteers willing to connect with the congregation members who are in need via phone or video chat. Generally, the CCCM program is a distance program. Part of that is to minimize liability. If you're doing home visits, it's always recommended that people go in pairs for their own safety as well as for the safety of others. But that is something you need to determine with your attorney. Volunteers will not make unsupervised home visits or take on any fiduciary responsibilities. I know I've said that like three times or more, but it's an important aspect of liability management. Volunteers will have a background check completed, be fingerprinted and sign an ethics statement prior to providing any services. You want it down in, you know, black and white that they understand the scope of practice and the limits of what they're allowed to do. Each church is obviously going to have its own policies governed by its liability insurance. And it's again recommended that volunteers who are licensed in financial professions, construction, helping professions, etc, generally not solicit case management participants. Now what I mean by that, you know, if they want to advertise in the church circular, cool, by all means. But you don't want somebody volunteering as a case manager who has the idea that they're going to fill their practice or, you know, book clients by connecting through the case management program with people who are vulnerable. You don't want the case manager basically taking advantage of people by building rapport. So it's a fine distinction. But you know, obviously we want to let parishioners know about other parishioners who offer the services that they need. But we don't want the person that's making the referral to also be the person that's benefiting from the referral, if that makes any sense. And that's an issue of dual relationships that most licensed professionals know that they need to avoid anyway. Volunteers need to receive basic training and case management. They don't need to go through the whole 325 hour certificate program that we've got on all CEUs, or, you know, they don't need to go through a graduate level program and case management, but they need to understand the foundations, they need to understand the function of the congregational care case manager. They need to understand procedures for contacting the people in need and documenting those contacts. Now at your church, you may have them come in and use a phone, use an office in the church or, and then take, take notes while they're there. And everything is either on the computer at the office or handwritten if you do old school. Or they may be able to connect, they may be able to do their shift from their home if they've got access to, you know, a phone and Internet. Then you need to figure out how is that documentation going to work. Is there a place on your website that they can VPN into and this would be something that your IT department would work with somewhere that they can VPN into in order to make notes that everybody can access. You generally don't want to use something like Google Docs because it's just not secure. Even though case managers aren't necessarily covered by hipaa, especially congregational care case managers, it's still beneficial to follow the HIPAA guidelines. And because people don't want their business getting out there, volunteers need to know the basics about insurance principles. What's a copay, what's co insurance, what's a ded, what is in network versus out of network. They need to be aware of the available community resources and how to use information and referral, how, how to call 211 or go to the information and referral website and look up to find out what kind of services are available. Maybe a parishioner needs help with paying, paying their electric bill and getting diapers for their baby. Well, I can can guarantee you there are resources that are available on information and referral, hopefully in your community for those things. Common issues in which congregational care case management would be helpful and the array of services and interventions. This is generally the bulk of the training they need to be aware of. You know, what might somebody who is grieving need and what resources are out there? What might somebody who is, you know, coming home after having hip surgery need and what kind of resources are out there? What does the average person need? What kinds of needs come up for a person after their spouse dies, for example? There's a lot of stuff, after my mother died, there was a lot of stuff that had to be handled that, you know, my, my stepfather spent literally over a week, pretty much all day every day making phone calls and connecting with people. But in the process of doing all that, he would forget to eat and, you know, forget to do some basic, you know, activities of daily living. So case managers can also help make sure that people are staying on track with, you know, taking their Meds and eating and those sorts of things doesn't necessarily mean they have to go to the house. But they can call and they can check in and they can hit and they can call up and say, hey Mr. Smith, how you doing? Just wanted to check and make sure that, you know, you remember to eat today and you remember to take your meds or whatever the case may be. The case manager would be trained in their scope of responsibility and that's the stuff. We already talked about what they can and cannot do and how to suggest resources or services to the committee that are currently unavailable. So if you need a support group in your community for people who are survivors of suicide, for example, you know, putting that up to the community, to the committee and letting the committee figure out, you know, are there grants available to fund it? How could we make that happen? And they also need to be trained in the identification of a crisis. And this is basic mental health first aid. It's not diagnosing, but it's noticing. If a person seems like they are experiencing a physical or psychological crisis, including detox, detoxification from benzodiazepines, from anxiety meds as well as alcohol can be life threatening. So it's really important that people are able to recognize and make referrals as appropriate and they recognize the seriousness of the condition. If you have a parishioner call up who's drunk and says they're trying to self detox, you know, that's generally not a safe thing and they should at least be evaluated. The congregational care case management director will create a process for people in the congregation to request case management services and receive referrals from the clergy and the community as well as individual self referrals. So a clinician, clinician like me might call up Sally's church and talk to the congregational care pastor and say, you know what? Sally needs help connecting with some transportation to get to and from her appointments and you know, a variety of other things. Maybe her house is falling apart and she needs assistance with connecting with services that can provide affordable home repairs or, or what have you. That's something I can tell the Congregational care case management program. They can take that referral and then the congregational care case manager can start working on helping Sally connect with those resources. The CCCM director will create a process for recruiting and training volunteers and be the one responsible for maintaining, maintaining a schedule of volunteer case managers. Now sometimes this TCCM director is the congregational care pastor, but other times it's an assistant to the congregational care pastor. But this person does Maintain the schedule to make sure that there is a consistent time and day or times and days that case managers are available. It doesn't have to be every day, you know, eight hours a day, but it should be a consistent schedule and people should be easy to reach. So clinicians, community members, whoever's making the referral actually can access someone relatively easily. You want to create a process for documentation and file management. Like I talked about, shared online documents can be very helpful where everybody logs into a single electronic record and that's ideal. But again, you want to do it in. In a. Using a process that is more secure than something like Google Docs or you can use old fashioned paper files at the church. You know, some churches will have a binder on every person in the program and they will actually do handwritten notes, whatever makes you happy. Develop an informed consent that recipients would sign indicating that they understand that this is not medical or behavioral health care or treatment and they understand the scope of services, what the CCCM can and cannot do and their rights in the process. You know, if they don't want to work with the CCCM anymore, they can terminate if they have a complaint, who to call, all that stuff that would be your lawyer would tell you to do. As part of liability management, the director will also review the case management notes on at least a weekly basis for effectiveness. Make sure that, you know, the interventions and the referrals that are being made are appropriate to what the person is presenting for and deficiencies, you know, making sure the paperwork actually got done and things were documented as they're supposed to. The CCCM director will ensure recipients are encouraged to complete a satisfaction survey periodically which is reviewed and integrated into quality improvement. That is what happens during the quarterly case management committee meeting. The C. CCCM director will update the policies and procedures as needed and facilitate those quarterly CCCM committee meetings. Congregational care service additions so things that a congregational care case management program might consider adding or working with other churches to add. Include respite service supervised in home respite. If you have people, families where a loved one has dementia or autism or the the birth parent has postpartum depression and a colicky infant, it may be that you create a program where two or more parishioners go to the home and provide 30 minutes or you know, four hours of respite care for the individual. Now generally for liability's sake, you want the individual to stay on the property, you know, stay at the house. This isn't babysitting, but it gives them a chance to take a bath. And, you know, change their clothes and what have you, if that's something they're not able to do because the per the patient is agitated. Respite services can also be offered at the church where you have a drop in program where, you know, Sally brings her infant with her and again, she stays on premises, but there is somebody there that's able to, you know, amuse the infant while Sally just kind of takes a breather and maybe plays on her phone or drinks a cup of coffee and, you know, talks with other adults that speak in full sentences. That can be huge. When you've got an infant at home creating a food pantry, you may already have multiple food pantries in your community. If so, great. You may talk about ways to maximize collaboration between the different food pantries. So if one is short on a certain type of food and another one has a bunch, you can, you know, make sure that everybody is supplied. It's also great to reach out to people in the congregation as well as the community who may not be in the congregation, who are like me and we are home gardeners who tend to weigh over plant and have times where fresh produce like, you know, butternut squash and zucchini and those sorts of things, extras can be brought in to the church and the parishioners can come pick those up. A pet food pantry is super helpful. Pets are a lifeline. They are emotional support tools for a lot of people. They are very important to a lot of people. But if the humans are struggling to meet their basic needs, then they're probably struggling even more to make sure that Fido is getting fed. And there are a lot of people that will choose to go hungry so that their dog can eat. So it is important to consider a pet food pantry. Work with your local pet stores when they have food returned that's, you know, open bags of dry dog and cat food, they can't resell it. And a lot of times they will donate that, that to pet food pantries as well as rescue organizations. You may consider having a clothing and blanket closet. You know, kids grow really fast and sometimes, you know, they need extra clothing and blankets and coats. Consider adding transportation with the church bus to shopping, for example. Now you don't want to use the church bus to take one person to a doctor's appointment. A lot of times there are much, much more efficient other ways to do it that are paid for through Medicaid or, you know, a variety of other ways. But if you've got multiple parishioners who can't drive for whatever reason, Then you may consider having a weekly shopping trip where you go pick up those, you know, five or 10 people and take them to the grocery store or Walmart or wherever it is that they need to go in order to do their shopping and that can help them maintain some independence. Obviously you're transporting people, so there's some liability, but if you have a church bus, you're probably already covered for that liability. And then support group meetings on things like grief, divorce, you know, like I said, just for new parents after a birth, postpartum and postpartum depression, emotions Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, codependence, Anonymous, Al Anon, Smart recovery, celebrate recovery, chronic pain and even singles. There are a lot of different ways that you can provide support and connection for parishioners in your congregation and even for people who are not parishioners yet, who might connect with the church first through a support group and then start coming to the church. Church homelessness is another issue that is possibly going to be addressed by the congregational care case manager. Homelessness does not necessarily mean living on the street. Homelessness means not having a permanent roof over your head. So people who are sleeping on a friend's couch, they're considered homeless. And it's important to connect with those people and help them try to figure out, you know, where they can access resources needed in order to get a permanent home. The Interfaith Hospitality Network, and you can look that up online, is present in a lot of communities and with interfaith churches get together and they take turns providing a shelter for people who are homeless to sleep. So each church may take a week in which the people in the community who are homeless can come, they can sleep in the recreation room or what have you and have so they have a safe place to sleep. So if you're interested in doing that, then you would want to look up Interfaith Hospitality Network and figure out how to get a network started in your area. Health education and coaching is another service that is not offered and the of the rest, the statistics say that only about 12% of Americans are health literate. So pretty much everybody in your congregation can probably benefit from health education. And you can encourage people to create committees, to create groups to have wellness fairs. There are a lot of different ways that the CCCM program can bring together parishioners and with different skills and tools. You know, your counselors, your doctors, your nurses, your dietitians, your teachers in order to help make your congregation healthier. Teen and tween activities like art clubs or board game evenings can be huge There are a lot of activities for little kids, but when youth get to be 11 to 18 in many communities there is a huge lack of safe, healthy, pro social activities for them to do on a regular basis. So offering that giving teens and tweens a clean, safe environment in which to interact with one another can be a huge community service and can connect those teens to the faith based community. Other services that you may offer include yard work for people who can't do their own yard work. Create a community guard garden at the church so people can have their own little area, own little small garden and start learning how to grow things like tomatoes and onions and broccoli and what have you. I already talked about connection support or just having a hotline or a number that someone can call if they need that human connection. It may be a new moment mom who, you know, just really wants to talk to somebody that speaks in words because she's surrounded by two toddlers and an infant. Or it could be a person who is shut in for some other reason and just really is craving that human connection. And it's not. Facebook is not the same. Facebook is often a one way interaction. So this can be helpful to actually let them talk to someone. And the CCCM program can also send out a daily meditation, a positivity meditation via SMS to parishioners who sign up and or they may do a daily or weekly blog that gives meditations and thoughts for the day to help get the get everybody in the congregation sort of in the right, right frame of mind each day. These are just some suggestions. There are a lot of things that you could, I'm sure you could do, but these are ones that needs that I have identified over the years in the churches that I've been going to, in the communities that I've lived in that would be beneficial services that a CCCM program might be able to offer or solicit volunteers to do. The CCCM program may say, hey, we've got three parishioners who are elderly and they can't mow their own lawns. Can we get a group of people together in the congregation to go out next Saturday and mow these three people's lawns so the CCCM doesn't have to do the guard work, do the yard work. Sorry. They are the ones that are helping gather volunteers. They're helping connect people who can help with people who need help. Case management services can be useful additions to the congregational care ministry. Case management services can help involve the congregation in helping each other and provide exponentially more services without overburdening the congregational care pastor. Both people in the congregation who provide as well as people who receive services often feel a greater connection to the congregation, and people who are connected to the congregation and getting their needs met are likely to be more able to give back to the congregation and the community.