Introduction

Concerned Home Managers for the Elderly derived its basic principles from a cooperatively managed home care agency in Bologna, Italy, where cooperativism and various progressive social programs have been prominent features of daily life since the end of World War II. This chapter explores many crucial areas of case management, whose effectiveness, when cooperative strategies are employed, depends not only on the skills of a single authoritative social worker with the ability to oversee and coordinate all aspects of a given case. It faces some of the practical issues that inevitably confront all home health care agencies, but especially those that might prefer to utilize cooperative strategies. The chapter serves as a social work contribution to the ongoing debate among home health care workers and legislators about the direction in which geriatric health care should move at the turn of the century.