Preparing for a Service Planning Conference or Disposition Planning Meeting Introduction After you have completed your assessment on each new client and done a tentative plan with the person, your agency might hold a meeting in which more specific plans are made for the individual’s care or services. In some agencies this is done informally. In small agencies, particularly, individual case managers may make those decisions by themselves, referring people to other services in systems that will have more formal case management. In some places, children who come into the system are presented by their case manager to a “children’s panel” consisting of child psychologists, child psychiatrists, social workers, pediatricians, and others who serve children. Many other places use panels of professionals for creating plans for clients from different populations; in this situation, the case manager presents the case to representatives of any number of agencies serving or specializing in that population. Together the group decides what combination of services would best suit people in their current situation and gives a diagnosis, if appropriate. If a person has both a substance abuse (SA) problem and a mental health problem and the agencies that address these two problems are not combined, representatives from each of the agencies working with the client should meet together to decide what should be done. In the past a client could be turned down for mental health services because he was drinking and turned down for SA services because he was suicidal. That kind of “turf” exclusion at the expense of the client is no longer tolerated by funding sources that expect people to be served. In these meetings, decisions regarding the service an individual will receive are made with others who have experience and come, perhaps, from different disciplines. When the meeting is over, a formal plan will be drawn up. What You Will Need to Bring to the Meeting You should consider bringing three items to these planning meetings. 1. Tentative service plan:You have already developed a tentative service plan with the individual. Bring this tentative plan to the service planning conference. 2. Human service directory:As you work within the same social service system, you will come to know, without consulting a directory, which agencies are reliable and which services are used most often by your agency when referring people. As you begin your career, you need to know what human service organizations are available in your community. If there is a directory, bring that to the meeting so that you can work with your peers to find the best placement for your client. A good place to look is the local phone book, where social services are usually listed together. You might copy these pages and bring them to the meeting. 3. DSM Handbook:The DSM is a large volume containing considerable information. If you are working in an area that is likely to use the DSM to give diagnoses, you m.